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

by Derrick Burke

  “Whoa, what did you do?” exclaimed Fuzzy.

  “Nothing, I did nothing,” I reply with a sigh. “However, Grace clued in the building AI and got them kicked out of the gym for two months.”

  “At least that's something. Better than nothing.” Blake grimaces softly.

  “Tell me about it.” I sigh again. “Grace, can you always tell me if Vicky is out and about? I'd rather not run into her. Now I need something to cheer me up before we head back into the game, or I'll be all moody.”

  “Can do, boss!” she says with vigour. “As for cheering you up, remember how I said that I could be summoned in the game?”

  My and the others' interest now piqued, I say slowly, “Yes, I remember something about that. Care to elaborate?”

  “Sure!” Grace says cheerily. “I couldn't be summoned in game until the other AIs had been given names and activated, as I was blocked. Now we are all free to enter DSR2 with you.”

  “No way! That's awesome. What character are you playing?” Blake exclaims with wide eyes, cogs turning quicker and quicker.

  “That's the thing,” Blake's AI, Jena, responds. “We don't know what we will be summoned as. There are two options you can choose. The first will summon us each as familiars that are calculated to be the perfect companion to you, but there is an element of chance there as well. We would level and grow with you.”

  “The second,” continues Sorrel, Anya's AI, “is that we are summoned in a humanoid form and size that is basically a massive upgrade to our familiar version. We would be basically like another full party member at that point.”

  “There is a catch though,” warns Karma, Fuzzy's AI. “If we are summoned in humanoid form, we would be our own persons and would be able to log in and out with you. However, should we die in the game, we would die out here as well, seeing as how we have no tether to the player. You would then be generated another AI, but that AI would not be allowed to ever log in to the game.”

  Adelram, Lockie's AI, then gives us some good news. “If we are chosen as familiars, then we would be able to be summoned and dismissed just like a Bonded from a summoner with similar respawning rules should we die in game. No, Blake, Jena wouldn't take up one of your summoner slots, so you would be able to always keep her out on top of your other abilities.”

  “In conclusion though, you all must make a unanimous decision here and now, or you will not be allowed to use this opportunity again. A weaker familiar with unlimited respawns, or a powerful humanoid with a single life,” Grace finishes.

  “Is it an aim of the DSR game designers to continuously give us shiny, exquisite handouts?” asks Anya rhetorically, then holds up her hands. “Not that I'm saying I don't want them, just asking due to us seemingly to be extremely lucky.”

  “No, that is not the case; however, if this beta test goes well, then everyone will be given a personal AI if they can afford it using either in-game currency or real money,” Grace answers concisely, then becomes vague. “As to your luck. Your Luck stats may have been high enough to have interacted with the game environment in various ways.”

  No game wants to portray just how the Luck stat works or you may just have people who stack that state and have everything handed to them. Other games have had this happen then changed how it worked and required a certain number of other stats before the Luck stat activated properly.

  The rest of us are just sitting there, mulling over the two different bonuses that just fell into our laps.

  Looking around, I see that both Anya and Blake have made their decisions. Fuzzy and Lockie seem to be hesitating and are looking at me, obviously waiting for what my decision will be.

  What do I want? A respawning familiar or a powerful NPC that could die and not revive. There really isn't a choice, to be honest. Why, if given a choice, would anyone choose the one-hit wonder?

  “One question,” I say.

  “Ask, then make your decision. You have three minutes left,” states Grace.

  “You said if you die in game as a humanoid, you will die here as well? Will you just reboot or…?” I ask thoughtfully.

  “We would die completely. No rebooting for us. You would be given an AI that isn't sentient for functionality, as you failed to keep your sentient AI alive,” Grace answers stonily.

  “Then I'm sure I have made the right decision,” I say with a smile. “We shall summon you all as familiars. Any disagreements, gents?”

  “None,” agree Fuzzy and Lockie at the same time.

  Blake and Anya both agree as well.

  “Wonderful!” exclaims Grace, back to cheerfulness. “I will select that setting, and when you log in, you will have a new skill in your abilities tab. You will also have a minimised character icon of us under your own icon when we are summoned. I recommend logging in before the hour is up, or the changes will not save and you will not be allowed to summon us at all.”

  “Well, that settles that, then, doesn't it?” Kazzrak says, getting up.

  We all get up and stretch. Our body clocks are so out of whack, it’s currently six in the morning and here we are, trundling off to another session of who knows how long of traipsing around in another world.

  Ah, the life of a professional gamer.

  2

  The darkness fades as I fully log in. Immediately I notice a new notification in the centre of my screen that won't go away when I try to swipe it closed. At least I'm in a safe zone, or that would be really bothersome.

  Congratulations! You and your group may now summon your familiar! Your familiar will automatically get all of the experience you acquire from now on until it reaches the same level as yourself. When your familiar reaches your level, it will take half the experience that you get.

  Your familiar is a part of you, so if it dies, it will return to you and be absorbed. Your familiar will be able to be resummoned after eight hours if it dies, and instantly if it was dismissed while alive. If your familiar is at one percent health when dismissed, it will regenerate its health over the course of eight hours. It can be summoned earlier but will not be fully healed.

  Your familiar awaits your summons!

  The notification disappears and there is a new glowing icon on my abilities bar. Summon Familiar, eh? Pretty self-explanatory, if you ask me.

  Thinking there isn't anything to lose, I click the icon.

  A swirling vortex of bright azure and violet light engulfs me, and I can feel the power of the summoning literally fill me up completely. A stream of energy leaves the centre of my chest and turns into a fist-sized egg of swirling energy glowing violet and azure in tandem.

  Eventually the vortex around me calms down as I absorb all the energy, and all the overflow gets transferred into the egg. It just floats there, still connected to me. Not wanting it to drop, I reach out and cup my hands around it.

  As soon as I touch the egg, the flow of energy stops, and blindingly bright cracks appear all over the shell. As quickly as the cracks appear, they break apart when a tiny snout punches through. As if the shell was waiting for this to happen, it crumbles away from the tiny twilight dragon that is nestled in the palms of my hands. Its tiny scales are the same colours as the swirling patterns on the shell.

  Too stunned to move, I just stare at my extremely cute new familiar as it looks around curiously. I'm still frozen as we both watch the broken eggshells. They are still flashing with blinding colours as they begin to disintegrate into pure energy before being absorbed into my hands.

  Feeling like my muscles are grasping live wires, I wordlessly scream as the energy travels from my hands and up through my arms. It flows its way to my chest, making my chest feel like its constricting and expanding at the same time so much that I can't seem to get a breath. My shoulder blades begin to burn, and the pain starts moving again, flowing down my spine, through my legs and right into my toes. All the while, my chest keeps constricting itself.

  Finally, the pain lessens in my chest; however, my back arches as it begins to go up the
veins in my neck. Not stopping there, it travels into my jaw, then up the sides of my face to coalesce into two points near my temples on my forehead. After a while, the agonising pain finally abates, and I find myself curled up in a ball on the floor.

  My eyes were closed for most of it, and I open them when I feel something wet, dry and rough all at the same time slide across my face. A dull throbbing is coming from my forehead as I stare into the compassionate eyes of the little twilight dragon that is licking me carefully.

  Looking at it with more interest, I notice that it looks more like a Western-styled dragon with four legs and two wings. The body is more catlike than snakelike, though it is covered in azure and violet scales that still seem to swirl around each other.

  As I'm lying there, watching the colours swirl, the little dragon's eyes seem to alight with azure fire, and without warning, blue flames are washing over my face. I almost flinch before realising that the throbbing in my head and the pain of the liquid fire that burned through my veins is now turning to a pins and needles tingling.

  Without realising, I open my mouth and let out a satisfied moan as if I'd just been hit with some decent painkillers. The blue flames make their way down my throat, and I feel something kindle in my chest. New notifications keep popping up, but I dismiss them, as I'm fine just resting here for a moment.

  Closing my eyes, I raise a hand to where the little dragon is and gently cover it, pulling it closer in a hug. A satisfied chirp and the feeling of it snuggling into my hand lets me know that it's happy.

  Sometime later I wake up and just lie there, a little furnace of heat pressed to my throat cupped in my hand. Without opening my eyes, I decide this is as good a time as any to check out my notifications. I pull up the list and also see that there are quite a few messages from the others, though I'll read them after the notifications.

  Congratulations! You have summoned and bonded with your twilight dragon familiar Grace. This is the rarest of dragons available to be summoned, so you must be very lucky!

  Congratulations! You have unlocked your Twilight Heritage form permanently. This is because you took hold of your bonded familiar when in egg form and you have absorbed the shell. It has become a part of you, and now when you use the Heritage ability, you will transform into a twilight dragon relative in size to your level.

  Twilight Aura permanently added! All your magical attacks will now be combined with the twilight element, increasing your damage output by 10% and your allies’ by 5% within 50 yards. Reduces your damage taken by 5%.

  Fire Ball upgraded! Twilight Fire Blast: Shoot a ball of twilight fire that explodes in a 5-yard radius. Only damages hostiles that don't have the Twilight Buff that you and Grace both give off. Spell Sword ability creates a sword that will deal exploding twilight fire damage upon impact with the same radius.

  New skill learnt! Healing Flames: Heals friendly targets hit for 5% of their total health over 10 seconds during a sustained channel. Damages any hostiles hit for the same amount healed. Consumes 5% mana per 5 seconds. Spell Sword ability creates a sword that will heal you for 1% of damage done and heal allies you slice for 1% health.

  Flying has been unlocked; however, you need to learn how to do it the hard way. By falling. A lot.

  As your familiar levels up and grows stronger, so will your telepathic link and the skills you share.

  Well, looks like Grace really gave me some awesome bonuses. Did I really need to have to feel every single change like that though? ’Cause, well, there aren't enough words for how much that hurt. I'm going to have to talk to the admins about that. In fact, I'll do that now.

  I open a ticket to the admins and compose a short query about how much pain levels were supposed to be applied to this scenario, as it felt like it was at 200%.

  Glancing over all the messages from the others, they basically just ask what I'm doing and if I'm okay. Looks like they didn't have anything as extreme as I did.

  Closing the chat, I figure I'll check on my little furnace before I clue them in to my being conscious. Opening my eyes slowly, I stretch, removing my hand from Grace to do so.

  Immediately, I notice that my hands are no longer normal, so I open my inventory and unequip all my clothing except my underwear. I want to see all of the changes that have occurred. My hands have turned into larger claws, with armoured scales travelling up my arm with a spike at each elbow.

  Flexing my hands, I can see I have the same range of motion as before, I'll just have to be careful how I pick up things until I can learn how to retract them. If I can, that is. Elbowing people may hurt a little more now.

  I also notice that there are lines of light the same colour as Grace engraved into my skin in a swirling pattern. Looks like they follow the lines of liquid fire I felt when I was changed. Scales in a much darker shade of the same purplish colouring cover me completely.

  Basically, I've turned into a true dragonkin. There are softly glowing lines of light travelling from my fingers, up my arms to the top of my chest, then down my sides to my legs and down them to my feet, which are now also clawed.

  That's when I notice that there is a thick sinuous tail attached to the base of my spine that tapers down to a point and is tipped with a sharp obsidian-coloured blade. I can move it around with a thought, and though it is a bit weird, it's almost like having another arm.

  There are also an extra two appendages in the shape of massive bat-like wings coming out of my shoulder blades. I can't actually spread them out to their full length in this small room, they are that long. Each one's length is probably one and a half times the height I am or longer. Each wing has three claws a third of the way along the wing from the base that are like a mini hand.

  The control I have with them is quite amazing, and I can really see how they could come in handy in combat. I can flick them out fast, slow, curl them about me, and also fold them up several times to become compact against my back. They don't even hinder my movement while folded up.

  By this point I realise that I am actually standing up and messing around with my new abilities. Watching me quietly the whole time is Grace, who is lying on the bed, tracking me with her eyes.

  Backtracking in my thoughts, I realise I am basically a more badass, permanent version of the Heritage ability I had prior, but never really got to check out much, as I only used it when I was in the thick of battle. It's interesting that I changed from red to the colouring of a twilight dragon.

  Sensing that I am more coherent, Grace gets up and launches herself off the bed and into the air. She flies around the room once before landing on my shoulder and mewling in a cute little imitation of a roar.

  Cracking a smile, I chuckle. “Hey, Grace. You look pretty cute, you know. I bet you're going to grow up into a big, fierce and beautiful dragon.”

  The little dragon preens at my compliments for a moment before going back to mewling at me. As she does, I swear I can feel hunger pangs for some reason. I haven't felt hungry in game yet, so that is odd.

  Frowning, I look at Grace, and she glares at me and swipes a claw at my mouth gently.

  Oh, duh. Class A idiot here. “I need to find you some food, don't I?”

  She licks my cheek then, so I guess that's a yes.

  “What do you eat? Meat?” I ask quizzically.

  Another lick.

  “Alright! New quest! Find Grace meat!” I exclaim in a loud voice, and I'm about to open the door when I realise I'm still in my underwear. Whoops.

  Reequipping everything, I notice that there are automatically holes in my armour for my tail, wings, elbow spikes and all my claws. Cool. Means I don't have to make gear specifically for me; I can use the same things everyone else does.

  Walking out into the main hall with Grace perched on my shoulder, I notice that everyone who is there stops to stare at me as I walk towards the exit.

  “Lord Sybaal, I am glad to see you awake after your rest,” Chief Knoxley says with quite a fair amount of awe in his voice as he appears at
my side.

  “Thank you, Chief. I had a bit of a nap after summoning my familiar, Grace. Say hello, Grace,” I say with a smile.

  Chirping a couple of times, Grace nods her head at Chief Knoxley.

  Well then.

  “Hello, Grace.” Chief Knoxley grins before turning back to me. “I hear you all had a very good haul down in the mines. Now that you are up, are you going to be doing some more mining, or going to have a chat with the goblins?”

  “Well, depending on what the others want to do, we will probably head down into the mines and go see the goblins. See if we can't work something out with them, I think,” I say calmly.

  “Wonderful.” He clasps his hands together. “Well, I had best get back to rebuilding the village. To tell you the truth, we were probably going to tear down all the old huts and replace them with sturdier buildings anyway. We were just waiting for our Building professions to level up.”

  “Ah, I see. I look forward to seeing proper buildings here soon, then. I'll let you get back to it.” I wave goodbye and move on outside.

  Sybaal: Hey, guys, sorry for the hiatus. Kind of needed to take a nap, I think.

  Kazzrak: Dude! Where you been? It's been five hours already!

  Ifalna: We even logged out to see if you have done so, but we saw you were still connected.

  Ezekial: What took you so long?

  Dosan: He probably got a really lame familiar and was hiding in his room. Lol.

  Sybaal: Haha. Funny. Where are you guys?

  Ifalna: We are levelling up our professions just outside the entrance to the mine.