GodsRealm- Betrayal

by Luke Isaacs

  The flame it spewed forth almost broke the ice shield in the first attack before it expired. Thankfully, dragons had a cooldown period of an entire minute until they can breathe fire again, allowing a counterattack.

  The dragon had metallic scales over most of its body, rendering it almost impenetrable. Its mouth was filled with razor sharp and searing, super-heated teeth. Each of the talons on its clawed feet was equal in size to Mark’s sword, and its powerful tail, its deadliest weapon after the fire, was topped by foot-long spikes.

  There was no time to discuss tactics but one the experienced members of Valhalla Greatest quickly escaped the confines of their conjured room and took cover in the broken walls of the ruins in which it was located.

  Dana started her protective spell of Dragon Hold. It would divide the damage from the strikes of the dragon by their luck rating. Just as she finished, the dragon struck her with its tail. She flew a hundred feet, hitting the ground with a bone-shattering thud before skidding 10 feet and striking a low stone wall.

  Even before she hit the ground, Mario released an Unholy Boost over the group. Because dragons were demonic in nature, the boost would increase the Damage points they inflicted by 2.5.

  Rick held the Chilling Sword in one hand and conjured a Staff of Erosion in the other so he could start attacking the armored scales of the dragon.

  Mark made his call for Dark Bliss and charged the dragon. He weaved between its clawed feet and struck his talons at their foundations, beginning to sever them one at a time.

  Hurt and enraged, the dragon concentrated its attacks on Mark. He incurred much damage even as the Dark Bliss boosted his Health points. It wasn’t enough, and soon he was down to 25 percent Health, but he’d inflicted his own damage.

  The toes of the dragon were now bleeding and unprotected, and the invisible form of Rania darted in. She began stabbing the open wounds, infusing the dragon’s blood with the flesh decaying poison that coated her daggers and eating away at its Health points.

  Rick joined Mark and Rania, alternating blows from his sword and staff, in an intricate dance of mayhem and destruction.

  A clearly damaged Dana finally rejoined the battle with blood covering her avatar’s entire face. She cast Terror continuously on the dragon, forcing it to raise its front claws to fend the illusion and exposing its soft belly to the combatants.

  Mark and Rick plunged their swords into its belly, just below the base of its ribcage, and drove their blades upwards at its two hearts. The dragon shrieked and dropped to protect itself. They dived out of the way just in time. Blood was pouring from the beast’s nose, and Rick knew at least one of its hearts, possibly both had been punctured.

  Now, it was only a matter of time.

  There was another minute of vicious fighting; then the majestic beast attempted to flee by flying away. This sealed its fate; without two undamaged hearts to generate the energy needed to keep its massive body in the air, its brain was starved of its own energy and, now brain dead, it fell back to earth with an almighty crash, expiring with a single smoky breath.

  Rania materialized between Mark and Rick and clapped them on the shoulders.

  “Odin’s Beard!” she said, enthusiastically. “A dragon, you don’t face those much in the game!”

  Mario joined them.

  “To be honest, if we hadn’t the new armor, we would have all ended as dragon chew. Thanks, Mark.”

  They looked at him in amazement, none more so than Mark, who suffered more than his fair share of complaints and barbs from the group’s cleric since they’d formed.

  “Not at all friend, I owed you this.”

  “Pleasantries aside,” said Dana, grunting as she opened the belly of the dragon with her blade, and spilling enough golden coins to cover the surrounding area up to their ankles. “Don’t you think it’s highly unlikely for a dragon to leave its hunting grounds and just stumble over us while we’re meeting?”

  Dragons, as per game rules, always had a roost designated as their mating and hunting grounds. They rarely left them, waiting for the adventurous types who craved the title of Dragon Slayer floating over their heads, and of course the loot to come to them. They never had to wait long.

  “Who cares,” whooped Mark. “Look at this loot! This is an early birthday surprise in my books.”

  As a group they celebrated, not putting too much thought into the ‘why’ of their encounter. Fifty thousand of the in-game coins known as God’s Gold or GG, was the share for each one of them, plus an assortment of power-ups and equipment.

  As the group members headed to the nearest respawn station to exit the game, Mark’s mind returned to what Dana had said.

  Exactly what was that dragon doing there?

  2

  Rick let the first moments of ‘re-entry’ disorientation wear off, then removed his VNet suit and took it to the sterilization vat. Ever since he’d gotten a bad case of Gamer’s Rash and had to throw out a suit that cost him 500 DC, he never skipped this routine. He dunked it twice, making sure the clear fluid soaked the fine, breathable material, then shook it off and then placed it in the dedicated drying pod on the wall of his room.

  His room was like a shrine to GodsRealm. His many trophies and medallions from the game, including last year’s runner’s up plate, sat proudly on a shelf above the main ventilation grill. Memorabilia from the game including 3D prints, holo pics of the cities and locations in the game, and of course its most prominent monsters, covered the walls. In the corner was an almost ceiling-high stack of data cubes with recordings of Rick’s best gameplay.

  The whoosh of the ventilation grill was a constant white noise that Rick barely noticed. They were a necessity for underground dwellers like Rick and his grandmother. Their apartment was 20 floors underground, and the ventilation grills in each of the rooms were the only source of air to the house. It wasn’t much of a way to live, but if things went the way he planned, pretty soon he would be able to afford a place for him and his grandmother higher up, maybe even on the surface.

  Holo pics of him and his parents sat on the rickety desk in another corner of the room, a relic of times past where you had to study sitting to a desk. His wardrobe consisted of a curtain strung across an alcove in the north corner of the room, where his father had built eight shelves for him to place his meager wardrobe. It didn’t compare to the container for the precious VNet suit.

  Dominating his room was the floating half gravity holo-globe, a counterpart to the suit. It was two meters in diameter. Rick bought it on credit two years ago when he was 13 and slaved for an entire year as a proxy brain to pay it back to DECA holdings.

  He pushed it gently out of the way. It floated away like a helium-filled balloon and then he reached up and pulled his bed down from its place against the ceiling and fell on it. The bed was a flex-glass board with hooks and coils arranged in a complex mechanism. It always reminded him of the brilliance of his father, a gifted creator of utilitarian fixtures and furniture for the cramped spaces in the underground dwellings.

  He was excited about the approaching championship, but as usual, when he came out of the game, felt something was missing in his life. He’d felt this way for a few years now, ever since he’d immersed himself in GodsRealm. Nothing was as alive to him as it was in the game, and he was nothing like Lord Errate, his game persona. Rick in real life was introverted and guarded. Lord Errate, boisterous and adventurous.

  Sometimes it felt as if there was a missing ingredient to everything in his life. The food prepared by his grandmother was always missing an extra something that would make it really tasty. His job was well-paid, but it was tedious. Then there was the fact that he rarely stepped out of their apartment; it amplified and threw a faded shadow over everything in his non-game life.

  All of this made him feel that he didn’t quite belong to the human race. His reluctance to ‘join in’ made him shy away from things like VNet jobs that involved customer service, a much sought-after experience for people
on the VNet who didn’t appreciate all the quirks of AI, and even real-life events and meet-ups for GodsRealm, where players met up outside of the game. The ones that his teammate Raina was always trying to talk him into.

  “Rick, are you out of the VNet, dear?” the voice of his grandma reverberated from the holo-globe.

  He loved his grandma dearly. She had this uncanny ability to sense when he was getting lost in dark thoughts. He was certain that his grandma was not augmented, not like the military and police workers, and this made her ability to sense his dark moments a lot scarier.

  “Coming Grandma, won’t be a sec.”

  He sighed and dropped off the bed, triggering its mechanism to pull it up to the ceiling once more. He brushed back his hair with his hands and straightened his T-shirt before opening the door.

  He walked briskly through the narrow corridor connecting the three bedrooms of the house to the living room. It served as den, dining room and in the corner, the defunct workshop of his father. His grandmother always rejected his suggestions to pack up that messy corner, insisting that his parents would return someday.

  Opposite that was the door that led into the corridor that led to the elevators and communal baths and kitchens shared by the tenants of their little corner of under-level 20.

  His grandma sat watching an ancient holoprojector, one that he tried continuously to convince her to let go of so he could get her a cheap set of immersion holo glasses. She refused him every time, remarking that he didn’t appreciate the classics.

  “I made pea surprise,” she said, standing up and rushing to the food counter. “The one that you adored when you were little.”

  “Awesome, thanks Grandma,” he said, even though he knew that as always, it would be lacking, like everything else in his real-world life. “Let’s eat then.”

  “No, dear,” his grandma gave him his plate and went back to sit on the couch, “I already took my vitamins and protein bar this morning, I am not hungry yet.”

  He’d noticed his grandmother losing weight lately and knew that she was too proud to tell him that her pension was not enough to let them eat properly. She refused to let him use his earnings from either his job or from GodsRealm.

  “We’ll get by,” she’d say whenever he suggested it. “You save every penny you earn, and you’ll have the life you deserve without ever needing to hack.”

  “I got one thousand DC today,” he ate his peas slowly. They tasted nothing like the peas he remembered from his childhood. “It was a pleasant surprise. We killed a dragon.”

  She smiled at his news.

  “Nice! Now you can buy that upgrade to the suit you’ve been talking about.”

  Grandma always encouraged him to spend DC on the game; she knew it was a wise investment.

  “Nah.” He waved his fork. “I’ll get the upgrade in the championship in 10 days anyway. I was thinking about paying the 500 DC that would upgrade our medical and rations grade for the next quarter though.”

  Her smile disappeared.

  “Why should you?”

  “Because I’d like to see you eating some peas with me Grandma,” he said softly.

  “I might be old,” she said indignantly. “But I’m not senile or decrepit, Ricardo Hernandez.”

  “I know you’re not, Grandma,” he left his plate and approached his grandma, touching her arm softly. “But you would have accepted this from my father, wouldn’t you?”

  “It was wrong of me. He and your mother were thrown to slavery because they tried hacking to repay their debts.”

  “That’s why I never use credit, Grandma.” He sat down beside her. “I limit my spending to my earnings, this is extra money that would help both of us.”

  “I’m fine.” She kissed his cheek. “Just do with it what pleases you.”

  “You’re losing weight Grandma,” his voice growing frustrated. “I’m not a kid anymore, please let me help. That’s what will please me.”

  “But you might need this money for something better.” It was like battling a green ogre! She was relenting but held for the last fight. “I’m old and will soon leave this world to young people like you.”

  “As long as you’re still here,” he said, standing up and putting his arms around her. “Allow me to be a good grandson to you, please Grandma.”

  “Okay, Ricky, okay.” Tears pearled at the corners of her eyes. “But please tell me if I ever become a burden on you. Promise me.”

  “I promise, Grandma,” he kissed her hands. “I promise.”

  3

  Robert Yee and Thomas Mehemet sat in a lush garden café in the most exclusive region of VNet, the Elysium Gardens. Here a single megabyte of real estate costs more than a gigabyte anywhere else on VNet.

  A third-generation AI, who could only be spotted by the most avid of code writers as non-human, served them tea with exotic spices.

  The tea had an effect similar to the old time's marijuana, only milder and subtler. The rich and influential could partake in its pleasure without ever becoming addicted – it was, after all, just a piece of coding.

  A relaxed but still intimidating Thomas Mehemet addressed Robert Yee who sat cross-legged facing him.

  “What do you want of me, Mr. Yee?”

  A nervous Yee took a sip of his tea.

  “I have a proposition that I think will benefit both of us, and one which I think you will like on a personal level.”

  “Interesting. A personal level, you say? I honestly doubt I would have any interest, personal or otherwise, in any venture you can propose, Mr. Yee.”

  Mehemet was known in the bowels of the VNet as ‘The Pitbull’. Once he latched onto an opponent, he didn’t let go until they were dead. He’d had the nickname since the beginning of his criminal career when he was a mere cyber thug. That stubborn ‘fight to the death’ mentality had seen him rise to become an infamous crime lord and now, in his latest iteration, a very wealthy businessman. Oh, he was still a criminal, it’s just that now he hid his dealings in legitimate businesses. Businesses like the one they sat in right now, right up to the mega corporation he owned 51 percent of.

  Yee knew more of Thomas Mehemet’s background and intricate web of finances than most and, importantly for this negotiation, also knew he was in some difficulty. Mr. Yee’s avatar sat up straighter in his chair to show he wasn’t intimidated.

  “I am a businessman of some renown myself, Mr. Mehemet, as I’m sure you know. Will you hear me out or must we continue this silly dance?”

  There was a pause, and Yee waited for the Pitbull to explode. He didn’t.

  “Go on, then,” said Mehemet, slumping into the lush pillows. “I am listening.”

  “I know that for the last three years you were invested in the proceedings of the annual GodsRealm championship.” Yee had a sharpness to his tone that indicated he had disabled the tea’s effects on his mind.

  Mehemet shrugged.

  “I bet on the occasional promising team.” His eyes closed and someone unaware of his dangerous nature might have thought he was drifting to sleep. “Never on the first place though, Odin’s Hand had that secured for the last four years. I don’t think they’ll relinquish any time soon either.”

  Not fooled by the other man’s dozy appearance, Yee made his play.

  “My plan ensures another team will win this year.”

  Like a crocodile surfacing, Mehemet opened one eye.

  “Earning us both a few hundred million in DC betting on the new team.”

  “That’s highly illegal…”

  Yee shrugged.

  “Maybe. If done carefully, we need never worry.”

  “I’ll humor you,” said Mehemet. “What’s in it for you?”

  Yee pulled a vape from his pocket and dragged deeply on it.

  “Odin’s Hand has been sponsored by my company for the last five years, our CEO managed to survive in his position since the financial crisis of ‘37, all because of the goodwill and sales income their endorsements
brought.” He took another drag on the vape. “My team would give me a shot at his position in the next shareholders meeting. They’re suckers for anything GodsRealm since our biggest sales are power-ups in the game. That and the DC we win would allow me to double my shares in the company to two hundred thousand.”

  “That, my friend, is what I needed to hear.” Mehemet sat up, now fully alert. “I know greed for money moves people, but power… lust for power is a superior motivator. Owning a slice of the biggest company in the entertainment industry sounds nice. If you arrange to buy and sell me an equivalent amount of shares as well, we have a deal.”

  Yee raised his eyebrow.

  “You’re wondering why I don’t just buy them on the stock market?” Mehemet said. Yee nodded. “I can’t. I’m banned by the Federation of Virtual Networks Security from buying directly into stocks, bonds, and any kind of shit that would turn me fully legit. So, if you buy them and resell them to me in a closed session which is allowed by the FVNS, we’ve got a deal.”

  “Why haven’t you pulled this scheme with any of the other executive types that come your way then?”

  “None of them are as eager or hungry as you are, Mr. Yee.”

  Yee takes a long drag as he ponders the counter-offer.

  “One-hundred thousand shares?”

  Mehemet, his eyes bright, nodded.

  “Done, on the proviso that I have your votes when the time comes.”

  “Done.”

  As they shook hands in agreement, the AI waiter comes forward with a tray holding two flutes of champagne.

  “To the success of… what’s the team name?”

  “True Heroes Under God Society,” said Yee, waiting for the other man to laugh at the ridiculous name.

  “THUGS?! I like it. Here’s to the success of the Thugs! My lawyer is coming in a few seconds to finalize the selling of the shares between us.”

  “I like that you’re so certain we’ll win,” Yee said, his expression puzzled. “But shouldn’t we wait until after the tournament?”