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

by Derrick Burke

  “Uh, sure. Put him on speaker,” I reply, taking a sip of my coffee.

  There is an audible tone, which I guess represents taking the call.

  “Donald? You there?” Dylan's gruff voice asks uncertainly.

  “Yep, what's up? You all moved in and settled?” I reply with a smile.

  “We are, actually, just finished moving everything this morning before we had a bit of an issue crop up,” says Dylan a bit hesitantly.

  An uneasy feeling settles in the pit of my stomach. “What happened?”

  “Well, see, I think it's better if you watch it yourself. I'm sending you a link to the security footage of the house now. Anyway, let me, uh, know your thoughts when you get a chance to watch it,” Dylan grumbles, and there is another click and the line goes dead.

  It almost sounds like he is apologising for something. This is going to be interesting. I hope he didn't drop my forge or somehow catch my shed on fire. Hard to do, but not impossible.

  “Would you like to watch the video? I have it ready to play on the big screen if you wish,” asks Grace over the room speakers.

  “Sure, let's see what Dylan's been up to this time.” I sigh, leaning back in the couch to a more comfortable position.

  “If Dylan is apologising for something, this is going to be hilarious. He always gets into the funniest shit.” Blake laughs, throwing a handful of popcorn into his mouth and munching away.

  “I think the uncertainty and the unknown are making it more interesting,” Anya agrees.

  “Shh, everyone,” Fuzzy says loudly. “The show is starting.”

  The massive TV splits into four sections again, with different views of the front of the house. It's a white brick single story, with dark grey roof tiles and a double-car garage. The driveway has enough space to fit four cars in it before it hits the sidewalk. Two massive trees on either side of the lawn give the front yard quite a bit of shade.

  Realising that I can see a cab rock up and park in front of the driveway in one of the screens, I quickly sit up and grab another slice of pizza. Mmm, so good.

  Grace also increases the volume enough that I can hear Rosie slam the taxi door as she gets out. The security cameras have pretty good sound pickup. She is primped up today, wearing a short green skirt and a white see-through blouse, which shows off her bright red lacy bra.

  She slings her large handbag over her shoulder and pulls out a duffle bag from the boot. As soon as the boot closes, the cab drives off, leaving her in the driveway, looking exasperated. Looks like the taxi didn't want to stick around, let alone help her get her stuff out.

  “Fucking taxi prick!” she shouts at the fleeing taxi, raising her fist and shaking it after him.

  Walking up the driveway with her stuff, the camera slightly tracking her movement, she stops in front of the door and sets the duffle down. Fishing around in her bag for her keys, she eventually finds them and tries to unlock the door.

  Frowning, she pulls the key out and inspects it before trying again. There are only four keys on the ring, so it's not like she has the wrong one.

  Ha, or so she thinks. I just remembered that I told Dylan to change the locks.

  Starting to look extremely frustrated, she mutters, “Fucking turn, you bastard. Why aren't you fucking opening!”

  After a few minutes of us laughing at her frustration, she eventually rings the doorbell and stands back with an angry expression.

  Thankfully I have high ceilings in my place, well, Dylan's place now, as about a minute later, the door opens. Filling the entire doorway is a mountain of a man wearing a bright pink towel with flowers on it around his hips.

  Taller than Anya and more muscular than Blake, his shoulders are literally wider than the doorway, and he has to stoop his head to look through the door. A big bushy red beard covers most of his face and flows into his still-damp, bright red chest hair.

  “Can I help you Miss Y—Missy?” rumbles Dylan, correcting himself and almost giving the game away right from the start.

  “Who the fuck are you? I've never seen you here before,” Rosie says rudely, trying to move past him into the rest of the house. It's kind of hard when he literally fills the entire doorway.

  Rosie seems to realise this and tries peering around him into the house. “Go let Donald know I'm home. And it's Rosie, not Missy.”

  The mountain of a man shifts his arm slightly and completely blocks the doorway. “I'm sorry, Missy, I think you have the wrong house. I just moved in here with my wife and newborn son yesterday. Please keep the noise down, as I just put him to sleep.”

  “What the fuck are you sprouting, old man?” Rosie says incredulously as she is refused entry. “Get off my property right this instant or I'm calling the police for trespassing. I don't care if you are Donald's friend or not, I'm not in the mood.”

  “I'm sorry, Missy, you don't seem to be of your right mind. I live here; you do not.” Dylan's voice becomes firmer, and he takes a half step out the door. To do so, he has to duck down and twist sideways, which is kind of hilarious in and of itself.

  Dylan continues, “Please be quiet and leave before you frighten my child awake with your language and behaviour.”

  Standing there, mouth agape, Rosie's cheeks flush a deep crimson in anger before she erupts into a bout of screaming. “Donald, you fucking asshole, get the fuck out here this fucking instant! You! You lumbering sack of flabby rotten potatoes, let me the fuck into my fucking house! If you don't move out of my way this instant, I will barge in and forcibly remove you and your imaginary family from my fucking house!”

  As she is saying this, she is smacking him in the chest with her handbag over and over. Just as she is drawing a breath to continue her rant, a baby starts wailing from what seems like right next to the door.

  It's so bloody loud. What a set of lungs on that little fella. Jeez. Must be a massive newborn, eh? Good thing his wife is a big woman.

  The mountain's peaceful expression evaporates instantly upon hearing the piercing wail, and his eyes turn thunderous as he growls softly, “You woke the baby. I warned you not to wake the baby.”

  Closing the door behind himself as he leaves the house fully, he reaches behind Rosie and grabs a handful of her see-through shirt from the middle, lifting her up off the ground without effort.

  As he is marching down the driveway, with her suspended by her shirt, the camera has an amazing view from the stretching of said shirt.

  Ah, I'm going to miss those. Though really not worth the hassle.

  “Let me down, you lumbering oaf! I'm going to have you arrested for assault and trespassing!” Rosie's face is equal parts indignation and frustration as she keeps smacking him with her handbag to no effect.

  Reaching the edge of the driveway, he unceremoniously plonks her arse down onto the road.

  “Don't come back,” he growls threateningly. “I will be the one calling the police otherwise, and you can explain to them why you woke the baby.”

  With those final words, he marches back up the driveway to the front door and leans down to pick up Rosie's duffle bag. Holding it by the straps, he underarm throws it in Rosie's direction, where it lands with the sound of breaking glass at her feet. When he opens the door, the brief sound of his son's wailing can be heard.

  With a completely surprising singsong voice, Dylan calls out to his child, “Everything's okay, the mean woman who cheated on Donald is gone and won't be coming back. Go back to sleep, little one.”

  His voice is cut off as the door slams shut behind him.

  Damn, she actually got her ass handed to her. That was surprisingly pleasurable to watch instead of being the one doing it. Especially seeing as how I've been taking her crap for so long now.

  Getting up, she huffs a little and must be mentally running through her options before she pulls out her phone and calls someone.

  Standing there on the side of the road, Rosie whines into the phone when it connects, “Jacob, you need to come pick me up from Donal
d's place. He must have found out about us somehow. There has been some miscommunication between the new tenant in Donald's house and me, as he has moved out. The new tenant bloody well lifted me up like a stray kitten and dumped my on my ass on the side of the road like a piece of trash. Stop bloody laughing, you prick, it's not funny!”

  After listening to his response, she continues, “There's a video? Send it to me. No, I don't think he knows everything. He probably only thinks I'm cheating on him, nothing else. Prep the team. We are going back in as soon as we get back. There is way too much to do before he reaches civilisation, and I won't have this set us back. You'll be here in under ten minutes? Okay, see you soon.”

  “Only cheating? What the fuck else is she doing?” asks Anya, sharing a weird look with me.

  Rosie has gone from uptight, angry bitch to nonchalant professional in the space of half a second. Frowning at her phone, she pulls out her tablet from her handbag and presses a finger to the lock.

  A new male voice comes out of the tablet. “You have received a secure file from DSRRAD. Would you like to play the file now?”

  Frowning, I share a look with the rest of my friends around the room. DSRRAD is the research and development section, which is extremely high up in security clearance for DSR. The people who work in those sections are akin to the CIA, where they aren't allowed to tell their friends and family who they work for or what they do.

  Top-secret spy stuff, except with a global market on a game interface that revolutionised the world. What the fuck does Rosie have to do with them?

  Looking at her tablet, she agrees. “Sure, open it up.”

  The female voice-over from the code black video we just watched starts coming out of her tablet as she starts playing it.

  Rosie's eyes get wider and wider as the video plays, and she seems frozen in shock, watching the back and forth between us and the events she never saw happen.

  Once she completes the video, tears slip down her face as she looks up at the camera and says softly, “I was doing this for you, Donald. It was always for you. Your bumbling idiots for friends have no idea what’s really going on under your own noses.”

  Taking a deep breath, she seems to calm herself somewhat. “Donald, you don't need to know why I'm doing what I'm doing. Not yet. If you hate me for it, then so be it. One day you will understand.”

  Rosie then closes her tablet and puts it away just as a sleek sports car stops right in front of her. She chucks her bags in at her feet and climbs in without looking back.

  Speeding off like a bat outta hell, the sports car leaves a set of tire treads on the road in its wake.

  Abruptly, the video ends and the screen goes black. The screen reverts again back to the gaming news with the sound muted.

  “Well, that was kind of intense. What did she mean by the shit that was dribbling out of her mouth at the end there?” Fuzzy asks, looking genuinely confused.

  “No idea, but how she can expect to cheat on Donald and not have any repercussions is beyond me,” states Anya with a shake of her head.

  “I think that whole thing was funny as fuck!” explodes Blake, leaning back and emptying his box of popcorn into his mouth.

  “Who else liked the towel? I liked the towel,” Lockie says with a massive sly grin. “Though the code black was pretty interesting too. Getting all hot and bothered while being surrounded by hot guys and girls during a fun exercise. Ah, just my kind of thing.”

  “I apologise again about that, guys,” I say softly. “I didn't mean to lose it.”

  “Donald, we are all well aware of what code black means; even Blake is now properly introduced to the situation,” Fuzzy says with a shrug before grinning himself. “Don't worry your pretty little head about it. As you can see, the bruising is healing up quite well and almost gone completely. I can even see straight now!”

  Laughing, we all get up and stretch. That food has hit hard, and now I'm actually pretty tired. Food comas are the worst, ugh. Not to mention being kind of emotionally drained after witnessing that whole scenario with Dylan and Rosie.

  I still can't figure that out, and it doesn't look like I'm going to any time soon either.

  Thinking the incident over for a minute, I make a decision. “Grace, please give my regards to Dylan and thank him for the video. Tell him that we are all good, and I hope his kid gets some sleep.”

  “Will do,” replies Grace.

  “Who reckons everyone would have woken up by now in the game?” asks Lockie, looking around at us.

  “Ha, anxious to get back in there, eh?” Ifalna grins.

  “Well, I figure that we were aiming at getting our relic gear, and I'm quite looking forward to free loot,” she replies.

  “Hmm, you're right. I completely forgot all about those. There's nothing like the thought of being decked out in Legendaries to get the blood pumping,” agrees Blake as he gets up abruptly and heads for his room.

  “Alright then, break's over.” I move to follow Blake to my own room to log in.

  With a happy smile, Fuzzy says, “Back to the grind.”

  5

  Logging in, I notice an hour and a half or so has passed, and it is now 17:26 in game. Taking a moment to orient myself, I'm about to summon Grace when I actually think for a second and realise that I would probably be crushed by her in here. Exiting my room, I head outside with the others, and soon enough Grace joins the party along with the other familiars.

  “I forgot to ask you how your nap was, Grace,” I say with a knowing smile.

  “Oh, I think you know full well how good that nap was, considering you all had something similar not so long ago,” she replies with a twitch of her tail in a playful voice.

  “Indeed, you are correct.” I laugh.

  Looking around, I see that everyone who was down for the count before is now nowhere to be found.

  “I wonder where everyone went,” inquires Dosan, his menagerie following him out the door. He summoned both his familiar and Woody this time.

  “Dosan, how the hell do you all fit into such a tiny compartment?” I ask incredulously, something that has been bothering me for a while.

  He stares at me blankly for a second before bursting out laughing. “I just changed the room size in the settings from default to large, Sybaal. Like, seriously? You didn't do that? It is seriously cramped in the original room.”

  Putting a hand to my forehead in exasperation, I groan. “Well, that would have made things much easier.”

  Glancing at Grace though, I figure she probably won't fit through the door now that she has grown so large.

  Right then, a young nymph comes running up to us. “My lords! Elder Sylan ordered the first person to see you awake to bring you all to his conference room in the top of the tree. Please allow me to escort you there.”

  “Very well,” Ifalna says, striding forward to the entrance of the main trunk.

  The young nymph races in front as we all follow, taking a fast walk through the main sections and spiralling our way up to the top room.

  Upon entering, we are greeted by an almost full room with the leaders and their seconds sitting at the massive table. Even the massive ursine has a seat. There are five empty seats, which I assume are saved for us. The rest of our raid are mingled together around the room.

  All conversation stops dead as we walk in, and everyone rises to their feet.

  “Greetings, my lords,” Elder Sylan says politely. “Please be welcome and seat yourselves at the table. We are discussing what needs to be done and in what order of relevance within the Glade.”

  “Wonderful,” Ezekial says, clasping his hands together.

  We make our way through the room to the table and sit down. The others leave the centre seat for me, though I'm not sure it was on purpose. Looking around at the gathered people, I have a bout of nostalgia and am reminded of when our guild would sit down at war councils for discussion of the next raid or whatever before we disbanded the guild in preparation for DSR2. />
  I missed this, even though it was only two weeks ago that we had our last guild raid and war council. We had discussed what we would do in DSR2 and if we would stay together. After a back-and-forth discussion, we eventually decided that if we wanted to group up with each other in game, we would message each other and do so.

  Which is something that I really should get around to, as there are some very awesome players I would like to have in our guild.

  Settling into my chair more comfortably, I ask, “Alright, now what was it that you were discussing prior to our interruption?”

  “We were going over what should be done about Chief Branko and his clan. Until this is settled, all other points are moot,” Chief Kleemek replies.

  “What are the levels of Chief Branko and his clan? How are they deployed, and what are the majority of their classes?” Ifalna asks, getting straight down to the nitty-gritty.

  “I'm not sure how many he has in his clan, though he has brought three hundred of his warriors between level 22 and 26,” answers Halvard. “They are arranged in loose battalions of fifty and are trained to move as a single unit. Five of them are solid melee classes, so it will be difficult to attack so many at once. The last is a unit he personally commands filled with his healers, magic and ranged physical damage.”

  “Hmm, that's a lot of melee. This is going to be very difficult for us, as we only have a raid of fifty and we are pretty much even for melee and ranged,” Kazzrak points out.

  “I should also mention that my father and I share the same class of Guardian, and we have a special skill unique to us,” Halvard continues, and I wince internally, as I know it's going to be something that will make this annoying. “For every ally defeated, Avenge the Fallen makes us more powerful. For every single ally defeated, our health, strength and stamina increase by five percent.”

  Halvard pauses, letting that sink in for a moment, and I just stare at him, open mouthed.

  “Are you shitting me?” Ezekial basically yells. “He is a bloody high-end raid boss with annoying as fuck mechanics?!”