by Shiloh Hunt
Life: Online
A Gamelit Novel
Shiloh Hunt
Dark SFF
©2018 Shiloh Hunt
All Rights Reserved
Amazon Kindle Edition, License Notes
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold but can be given away to other people. You may share this e-book with another person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Contents
Author’s Note
Prologue
I. Gone Spear-Phishing
II. A Fan & And Some Smelling Salts
III. The Game Giveth & The Game Taketh Away
IV. Fear Not the Void
V. Off to Carnage Mountain
VI. Tap that Lag
VII. Mineral, Vegetable, or Animal?
VIII. Jeezy Creezy, Lemon Squeezy
IX. Completing the Quest
X. Who Screwed Jessica Rabbit?
XI. Don't Hate the Player, Hate The Game
XII. Hashing the Packets
XIII. Shut the Back Door
Epilogue
JOIN THE CLUB!
Also by Shiloh Hunt
About the Author
To Juan, Zaza & Bella
My family.
Author’s Note
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities between real world people/societies/governments are purely coincidental and should not be construed as an act of terrorism.
Prologue
GENERAL GAMING PRESENTS
LIFE: ONLINE
Get ready for the most immersive online gaming experience ever conceived: meet the first and only Massive Multiplayer Online Dreamscape.
Life:Online will simply blow you away.
7 RPG Genres will ensure you’re spoiled for choice
Fantasy
Wild West
Sci-Fi
Racing
Adventure
Life Simulation
War
Get lost in your new world
Boasting largest ever player environments
Unbelievable cinematography, astounding physics and the best graphics you’ve ever seen
Fully compatible with Mindware* technology for an utterly immersive experience
Fantasy, with just the right dose of reality
State of the art technology syncs your real eye-colour to that of your avatar
Hundreds of skin, hair, and clothing options to choose from will ensure you create the perfect avatar
Your speech is automatically translated from any language
Co-op, Multiplayer and Single Person campaigns
Tackle fascinating quests with your friends
Puzzle, hard-core, and kid-friendly modes available
Form online posses and lay claim to new territories
Message, voice chat, or video chat with friends and clan members
Please note: only Mindware version 1.0 and upward is supported. General Gaming cannot be held liable for any loss and/or damage due to players using incorrect Mindware versions to play the game. To check if your Mindware version is supported, please visit our online FAQ section for more information. Using cracked/pirated versions of the game or incorrect hardware is strictly prohibited and may be prosecuted under the full extent of the law.
Level 1
Gone Spear-Phishing
“There’s no use crying over every mistake. You just keep trying until you run out of cake.”
GLaDOS - Portal
1
The kraken was everything Kitty thought it would be. Wet, slimy, enormous, and pissed off as all seven hells. A gargantuan tentacle slammed down less than a foot away from her, its weight sending a ripple through the ground.
“It’s not working,” a voice screamed at her. “Try something else!”
Kitty gritted her teeth and leapt away moments before the thick, wobbling appendage skated over the ground where she’d been standing. She tightened her grip on her sword and dashed forward, intent on hacking away the blind, searching limb. Behind the yard long tentacle, the kraken’s bulk blocked out most of the sky, obscuring what rays of sunlight managed to pierce through the storm-tossed clouds raging above.
At least they’d eventually managed to lure it from the waves. The beast had too much of an advantage fighting from the sea. Shit, it had too much advantage nailed to a pole. With its blobby head and zombie-like thrashing, the kraken looked too idiotic to know the meaning of the word ‘advantage’, but it had hesitated to leave the safety of its murky waters.
Kitty’s arrows had been the deciding factor of that dispute.
After several dozen of them had pierced through the semi-translucent skin cocooning its soft and squishy bits, the kraken had emitted a piercing shriek and had hauled its fat ass from the frothing waves crashing down around it.
She’d nearly fled; it had been a close call. And William had been close when the thing had finally decided to engage them. Too close. The kraken had snatched up William before she’d ended her cry of victory.
Now, with the thing looming above her, it was time to get up close and personal enough to consider whatever transpired as a first date. And her bow wasn’t the right implement for the job anymore.
Kitty’s sword hissed through the air, hacking into the exposed appendage that lay quivering on the chunky gray sand of Chimera’s only beach. Although beach wasn't the right word. There was a decided lack of seagulls here. No soft dunes where you could stick in a rainbow-striped umbrella and get sun burnt while fending off ice-cream hawkers.
This beach was ragged. Rugged. And its only concession to its aforementioned ice-cream harbouring siblings was the narrow strip of sand separating its raging waters from the cliffs. But even this was dismally crunchy and littered with the skeletal remains of the kraken’s many, many meals.
Kitty’s sword didn’t do much damage. A pathetic nineteen points, in fact. And from what her hurried scan had concluded of the towering kraken, it still had a few hundred health points to go before it would explode, implode, or vanish. Kitty’s gritted teeth parted as she let out a scream and swung away from the tentacle’s whiplash parry.
“Use your fire spell!” William yelled.
Kitty glanced up at him. The kraken waved him around in the mist flung up from the angry waves. William wriggled and strained, neither action contributing toward his freedom. His horned helmet had been knocked off some time ago — ephemeral fingers kept toying with his mop of fair hair.
“I used my last fire spell on that enchanted Faerie Hart,” Kitty said. “Remember?” she prompted, when William’s only response to her statement was rolling his eyes.
“Electricity then.” His voice became a wail. “Or air, or, or—damn it, Kitty just do something! I can’t attack like this and the thing’s gone and poisoned me.” William whipped his head around as the kraken emitted a below that could have been voicing anything from a pre-dinner prayer to garbled kraken poetry. “And hurry!”
Kitty opened her mouth to protest, but closed it instead and flicked open her inventory. She had one scroll left… and no idea if the kraken was hiding a ninety percent resistance to whatever the scroll’s effects were.
She equipped the scroll. A tattered roll of parchment appeared in her hand, her sword disappearing instantaneously. She lifted her hand, the scrap of parchment seeming too thin and too tattered against the backdrop of the heaving, slimy mountain that was the kraken in all its fury.
“Hey, irrumator!”
The kraken, torn from its intent inspection of William’s hair, focused on her with a myopic gaze that she felt all the way down to her suddenly unsteady legs.
“Don’t look at
it!” William screamed. “It’s got the Medusa boon active. Close your eyes, Kitty.”
She did as William screamed at her to do, waving the scroll around and hoping it looked more frightening to the kraken than it did in her imagination.
“Unleash the Violent Vortex!” The words were unnecessary, of course, but it was difficult enough keeping herself under control without the additional effort of trying not to sound like a complete newb.
There was a howl. Not an animal sound, but the pure elemental savagery of air moving at speeds where the human body began unintentionally releasing bodily fluids. Kitty’s eyes snapped open, widening as they fixed with horrified fascination on the whirlwind surrounding what had been the kraken. Now, blood-streaked chunks of wobbling flesh spun as the wind pulverised the monster into bite-sized pieces kraken-sushi.
And, between the mess and gore, she could see glimpses of blond hair.
“William!” Kitty screamed.
Or, at least, tried to scream. The whirlwind snatched away her voice before her own ears could hear the cry.
“William!”
Above the whirlwind, garish digits sprang into existence.
57, 159, 241, 573, 72, 319
On and on the numbers spun, oblivious to the frantic wind. The whirlwind began to move away, further spurning the surface of the roiling sea as it went.
Kitty crashed to her knees. Her sword had reappeared in her hands the moment the vortex spell had been uttered and she gripped it without thinking, her knuckles white.
“Will.” The whispered word had no effect on the whirlwind.
A few seconds later, it had disappeared behind a dark bank of clouds where lightning speared the undulating surface of Chimera’s sea. And it had taken William with it.
Kitty sunk to her heels, opening her inventory and sheathing her sword. She opened the game’s chat console - a scrap of parchment here in Chimera - and thought out a message to William.
BAD_KITTY_69: R U OK?
There was no response. She glanced around the empty shore, knowing there wouldn’t be anyone around to help her: she’d last seen another player more than four hours ago.
BAD_KITTY_69: WHERE R U?
No response.
Kitty felt the preface of tears putting pressure on her eyeballs. Not here of course, but back on planet earth where she lay sound asleep. Exhaustion pulled at her: a bone-deep ache in her limbs and a leaden weight filling her mind.
“Futue te ipsi.” Her hands sunk into the sand as she pushed herself up.
“You hear me?” she yelled, swinging around in an effort to vent on something singular, something that embodied the entire Chimera Rift, the entire sordid affair that was Life: Online.
“Hear me? Es mundus excrementi! Futue te ipsi!” Her head darted forward, throwing the archaic curses into the brooding storm of Chimera.
“…help…”
“Futue te—” Kitty abruptly stopped cussing. She swung around, her eyes scanning the cold shoreline.
Frowning, she stepped away from the semi-circle her feet had drawn on the sand.
“Hello?” Her voice echoed back to her from the uneven slit in the jagged cliff beside her.
She’d thought it was just an added bit of game architecture the first time she’d seen it. Then the kraken had arrived and further thought about would-be caves had disappeared under an onslaught of thoughts about health potions and unsheathing two-handed weapons.
“…help me…”
Kitty stopped and leaned back. She glanced around - the shore remained empty. Nothing moved on the shore except the ever-hungry waves biting into its grainy gray flesh.
“Is someone there?” she quavered. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Get out here before I send in some huge fiery balls to fetch you out.” She ran the sentence over in her mind and added, “Like, scary flaming balls. Not, like… you know… man balls.”
There was no reply to her threat except a sound that could have been moaning or suppressed giggles. She pushed her shoulders back.
“Hello?” The snap in her voice made her feel better.
She was by no means a newb, but without William at her side she felt like the left hand of a pair of gloves. They always found ways to harness both their varied skills into a set of moves that drove enemies away, or to the grave, with the minimal amount of fuss and the most amount of mess.
“…please help…”
Kitty’s feet dragged through the sand as she forced herself forward. The cave extinguished the dim light of Chimera the instant she was more than a few steps inside the cold crevice.
She dragged a torch from her inventory, its light painting the walls orange. Shadows leapt away, skulking behind a rock outcrop, a few rotting barrels, and a discarded pile of cloth. It was a small cave, but what it lacked in girth in made up for in height; her torch light couldn't reach its ceiling.
Kitty’s eyes sped back to the pile of cloth an instant later. It was moving. She swung her torch toward it, her jaw too tight for her to cry out in surprise. The heap quivered and unfurled, a thin, pale face emerging from the rags.
“Please,” the man whispered. “Please, help me.”
2
Kitty found her voice a few seconds later and hauled it out from its hiding place behind her pounding heart. It had to be a player: non-player characters usually announced their presence by initiating a new quest by just being in the same region as you.
“Who are you?”
“Please…” The man’s voice was as unsteady as his gaze. “Do you…do you have a health potion?” Black eyes peered out from dark, sunken eye sockets amid a sweat-slick face.
“I, uh… ja. Ja. Hold on.”
Kitty opened her inventory, keeping it to the side of her vision to make sure she didn’t lose sight of the stranger. He didn’t look strong enough to stand, let alone leap up and slice her open with a hidden weapon, but she hadn’t gotten this close to the boss-level of Chimera without applying a tad of caution to every situation.
She located a vial of health potion, the smallest she had in her inventory, and dropped it on the cave floor where it glowed red. The man reached for it but his hand fell short by more than a foot.
Kitty sidled closer, picked up the potion, and dropped it again. This time it landed within the man’s reach. And promptly vanished. A second later the man heaved himself up, sickly face gone and eyes sparkling with a grim light. He lifted a hand.
“Excre—” Kitty’s words cut off as the cave went black.
Torch gone, she swept out with her sword, but it sliced through empty air; the man was gone. Kitty spun around, sword again slashing. It struck a few dust motes whose only crime had been dancing on a ray of light piercing through a crack in the roof.
“Irrumator,” Kitty breathed, inching forward with sword held at the ready. The crunch of her steel-toed boots on the cave floor was too loud, but the sound of her barely-contained breathing seemed louder.
She sneaked out of the cave, eyes wild as they searched the shoreline. But it was as empty now as when she’d stepped inside the cave. A shiver brushed her shoulders and she swung around, but the cave mouth remained devoid of strange, lurking men. Had it been an NPC? She doubted it. Helping or hindering an NPC meant her quest log would have updated.
Kitty hurried away from the cave, frowning. No longer upset by the obese kraken, the sea had calmed slightly. The waves were still topped with foam, but crashed with rhythmic certainty onto the sand. It might even have been a peaceful sound, had it not been for the occasional shriek from a passing harpy flying overhead.
She opened the game’s chat console. Although a new message alert would have indicated if Will had replied, Kitty was still disappointed to find no new messages.
BAD_KITTY_69: PLS TELL ME UR OK
Still no response.
Kitty closed the chat console and sank to the sand with a sigh. She watched the breaking waves for a few minutes before rummaging around in her inventory and discovering an
apple. She bit into it, tasting nothing, and watched her health bar creep higher. And then she ate a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese and, in desperation, three mugs of mead. She hated using up health potions. Now, with her health nearly full, she rose. Straightening her shoulders, Kitty headed down the shore. It wobbled compliments of the weak mead she’d quaffed.
“Don’t be frightened,” a voice behind her suggested.
Kitty’s sword struck the man’s raised arm. He seemed non-plussed by this; his only acknowledgement of the blow was a slight twitch in his left eyebrow. Back on planet earth, intense panic tightened Kitty’s throat. Her sword wavered threateningly in the space between them. She eventually managed to rip free a question from the confines of her chest.
“How did you—”
“Teleportation scroll.” The man stepped out of reach of her sword, eyeing her warily. “I hadn’t had time to put back my armour yet, and that sword of yours looks rather pointy when you’re on the receiving end, mate.”
Kitty kept the sword raised, dragging it from side to side in case the man decided to leap at her. But he merely stood, one hand massaging the arm she’d struck, staring at her.
“And you are?” Kitty snapped.
“Lucy,” the man said.
“Lucy?” Kitty frowned. The voice coming from the player’s avatar was most definitely male. It didn’t matter what race, alliance, creed, gang, or species you chose on entering the game; you always retained your natural eye colour and your own voice. Perhaps it was the game’s way of keeping it real… who knew?