Ring of Promise: A LitRPG novel (Elements of Wrath Online Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

  Shale: I don’t know about you, Kay, but I can’t risk not doing this. I have clustered chocolate orangutans up top to groom fabulously.

  Kayla: Then we do it. I don’t know about Burndall but Crysta knows how important up top is. She’ll understand.

  I frowned thoughtfully for a moment. The fact that I didn’t immediately take the quest told me just how attached I was getting to my groupmates. It was a real first for me, I had to admit, but I had to focus on Chrissy and Roxanne. Hoping Kayla was right, I nodded and mentally accepted the quest.

  Emmie nodded as the scene concluded. “We will be waiting and watching along this trail. Please, don’t let us down.” With that, she gestured to her fellows and off into the twisted trees. A moment later, they were gone, melting into the gloom as if they had never been there at all.

  Taking a deep breath, I turned towards Kayla. “Well, that was something else.” Boy, that sounded stupid and clichéd. She quirked an eyebrow as I continued, “So, uh, do you want to Teleport back to Granholm or hoof it?”

  Those clear blue eyes silently appraised me for a long moment. Finally, she said, “You know what? Let’s take the long way.” As she started to summon up her mount, she continued, “I know it’ll be tight to get you back before your timer hits, but I thought maybe we could use the quiet time.” She gave me a tentative glance. “Only if you want to, though. I know that time is money for you, and I don’t want to make things harder for you.”

  Mulling it over a moment, I found myself nodding. “Sure, but I think I earned a little bit of a break.” I hadn’t, not in my eyes, but it sounded like a good excuse. Honestly, I was simply enjoying spending this much time with Kayla, playing the actual game or not. I pulled out my whistle and summoned up Snowy. A few moments later, we were mounted up and riding for sunnier parts of the forest.

  It was a quiet ride for the first ten minutes or so. We left the gloom of the Tangleheart behind, entering the scattered groves of the foothills before the Dominion Mountains. The great Trade Road wove like a giant serpent through those foothills, the head being the mighty walls of Granholm. Once we were back under the waning afternoon sun and on our way to the capital, the Beryl Robins tweeting along with the traveling music that began to swell, Kayla broke our self-imposed quiet.

  “Shale,” she began, “don’t take this as too imposing but … are you okay?” She pointed upward. “You know, up there okay?”

  I was taken off-guard by that and it had to have shown. Trying to hide my surprise, I shrugged. “Sure, I guess. I have troubles like everyone does but that’s how it goes, right?”

  Kayla shot me a dubious look. “Sure, we all do but …” She chewed her lip a moment. “Look, I know some people can make money on the side doing gold farming or work-for-gold here in EO, but you seem to be fully focused on it. Are you in some sort of gold-farm-sweatshop like they had in the old days? Is that what’s wrong?”

  I didn’t mean to laugh, but I couldn’t help myself. “Applesauce penguin!” Stupid Filter! I couldn’t even deny something so outrageous because it could give away the least bit about my life. Kayla’s sympathetic attitude started to sour so I frantically waved my arms. “Look, I’m sorry. The Filter is being, well, the Filter.”

  At least I got her back to dubious and vaguely sympathetic.

  “Look, I know it sounds stupid, but I’m worried about you. I really am.” She shook her head, causing her blue hair to bounce around like a mass of floating seaweed. Her voice started low but rose into a rant worthy of an Ember as she continued. “You must think I’m a loon but believe me when I tell you I’ve spent the last two days brushing my feathered yak and preening its wings when I’m not in-game thinking about you and the ‘why’ of you, and I can’t ask a single thing that would possibly help because of that kumquatting Filter!”

  I knew I was staring but not because I thought she was crazy. As she deflated into her saddle with a sigh, I tried to find the right way to order my words, the things rattling in my head, and the feelings bouncing around my heart. “Kayla, look, I don’t know how to put this in any way that will make sense, but I’m going to try.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You’re not crazy, not at all. There are … things … wrong with my life up there, and this is the only way I can think of to try and fix them. Big things.”

  She replied with a little bit of a laugh, a cathartic chuckle. “Well, that’s a relief. I might still be obsessed, though. I can’t be sure.” Glancing over at me, her watery eyes filled with surprising warmth. “I want to help, but I don’t know how. Now without knowing what’s actually wrong.”

  What could I tell her? Almost everything she could do to help would be in the real world, and it wasn't like I could ever ask that of someone I barely knew, even if I could. As that thought echoed in my head, I realized that I probably could ask her (if I had the power) and even if she couldn’t really help, she probably wouldn’t be offended. She wouldn’t be asking this much if she didn’t care, not with all the trouble it was to even try fighting the Filter like this. It might have been irrational to worry about this at all but for me, it was a cover for something deeper.

  The truth was that there was a way past the Filter, a way we both knew about. The Ring of Promise would do it and we could quest for it … but was that a commitment I wanted to make? It wasn't Kayla, everything I had seen told me she was someone I would want to know up in the real world, but because who would want to know someone like me? What could I offer someone in the real world?

  I stared at the back of Snowy’s neck because I honestly couldn’t bear looking at Kayla, no matter how beautiful she was (and how much I found myself wanting to see the beauty of the real woman behind the avatar). “You know I can’t tell you, and there’s no way to trick something that’s plugged into our brains. Trust me, I know more about NSAF than most people do.” I sighed in defeat. “The best way you can help now is for us to keep going. If we luck out and win one of the prizes, well, that would make a huge difference for everyone, right?”

  I could feel her eyes on me, searching for my own, but they averted after a moment. “Okay, Shale. I’m in it until the end, okay?” There was an uptick to the lost tone in her voice. “Maybe you’re not used to being able to count on people, but you can count on me.”

  Gathering my courage, I finally took my eyes off the soft fur of my ram’s neck to look at Kayla, straightening up in the saddle. She was looking ahead, eyes focused on the road forward and jaw set, her entire body language giving off a stubborn determination that would have made the Craggar NPCs proud. I cleared my throat to catch her attention, her eyes swiveling to glance over at me.

  “Thanks,” I glibly said. “I mean that. I’m, uh, not used to trusting folks, no. Only … well, I can’t say. Not without spouting gibberish.”

  That delicate jaw softened as she smiled. “You’re welcome.” She nodded towards Granholm as it came ever closer. “So, do we do this turn-in this session or wait for the others?”

  “Let’s wait.” It was a welcome distraction to refocus on the quests ahead. “Maybe they have enough of the quests done to skip a step if we can trigger the next part. At the absolute worst, we can point them in the right direction.”

  Kayla nodded. “Agreed.” She laughed a little. “Not like we’d make it back to the city in time with that raggedy ram of yours!”

  I patted Snowy’s neck and he snorted. “Well, raggedy he might be, but he’s reliable. And cheap. Definitely a plus.”

  From there, for the rest of our slow ride back to Granholm, we devolved into small talk. I got to hear about her last Arena match and how the Arena schedule had gone to heck with the mad, server-wide scramble to get into Crystalfire and I got to bore her with tank theorycrafting and a meant-to-be-humorous story of the disaster that was the last pick-up-group I was hired to tank for.

  Maybe the fact that she wasn’t bored in the least meant something more than that she had bad taste in funny stories.

  While the
Filter has dramatically cut down on incidents of brainhacking and identity theft among the NSAF population, there is still a continual specter looming over us with both addictions and illnesses associated with deep-dive virtual reality. The time limits help considerably, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been an uptick in suicide and suicide attempts related to the NSAF gear, not to mention illnesses both mental and physical related to both immersion and disassociation from conventional society, like the ‘hikkomori’ problem that plagued Japan in the Twentieth and Twenty-First centuries.

  From a GNN mini-documentary on the rise of the deep-drive network

  I know NSAF games are the big thing right now, but we really just want to go outside and play.

  Anonymous teenager, interviewed for said documentary

  18

  I didn’t realize until I logged out that I had been recording the entire time, right through the actual quest and for the entire ride back to Granholm. Well, I hadn’t been live streaming. That thought made me uncomfortable for some reason. I realized it wasn't streaming the quest that was the problem. No, it was everything on that ride home … well … that felt far too personal to sell for views, no matter how big of a fan these people were.

  I’d figure out what to do about it later. Chrissy was home, and with everything going on, I realized I should spend time with her more than I had been. Besides, there wasn’t anything I could do now, right? Taking a moment to transfer what money I could spare out of Elementalis, I paid two bills I could manage, shut down the computer, and guided my wheelchair out to the main room.

  Roxanne was busy in the kitchenette, doing the thankless job of fixing dinner for our little family. The paperwork we’d been working on was gone, filed away and sent off to those it might concern, and we had an agreement that we weren’t going to talk about our looming financial issues around Chrissy. She didn’t have to know, not yet anyway.

  As for Chrissy, I could hear sythrock thrumming from the other side of her bedroom door. I wasn’t a fan of that kind of music myself. What fun was there in remixing classic rock with synthesizers and retro text-to-speech programs? Kids, am I right?

  Glancing over her shoulder at the sound of my whining wheelchair motor, Roxanne’s tired face turned into a wan smile. “Hey, kiddo.”

  “Hey, Roxanne,” I smiled back with equally mild fervor. “I hear Chrissy is hard at work. Think it’s safe for me to roll in there and bug her?”

  “Is there something wrong?" Roxanne's smile was fading as her brow knit with concern. "Well, something new wrong?”

  Part of me wanted to ask why everyone was asking me that lately, but I knew I had to be giving off wicked negative vibes. My answer was a little, one-shoulder shrug.

  Roxanne rolled her eyes as she turned back to the pot of whatever synth goop was the base for tonight’s dinner. “Of course, it’s safe. She always wants to spend more time with you, Max. You know that.”

  I grumbled at the pointing out of what should have been obvious to me as I turned to Chrissy’s door. “Yeah, well, you know how my self-esteem goes. Some days it’s fine, and most days it’s in the crapper.”

  Our nurse didn’t have a retort for that. She knew our situation, and she knew how I was. The discordant (to my ears) music wound down as one song ended, and I seized the moment to knock on Chrissy’s door with my good arm.

  The speaker of her voice modulator whined under the stress of her raised voice. “Who *zzzzzrk* is it?”

  I frowned at that. The modulator was definitely giving out. Shaking my head, I tried to sound chipper. “It’s me, spud. You do remember your big brother, right?”

  The music clicked off, and the door swooshed open, accompanied by Chrissy’s electric laugh. “Of *zzt* course I do. Come *brzt* in, silly.”

  While Chrissy’s room wasn’t any different than mine because, well, it’s not like we could afford to have each room repainted and recarpeted to fit our individual tastes.

  All the same, my sister had managed to make her space her own. Her rest capsule (properly calibrated with a sealed atmosphere that allowed her to sleep without that mask attached to her face) had astonishing lime green cushions and blankets. The walls were covered with posters. Everything from synthrock bands to NSAF games to the latest Tri-D shows to bizarre bits of art, anything that Chrissy could snap up to put on the walls, she did.

  Like in my room, she had a NSAF helmet on a motorized stand, though more to help her with her prosthetic arm than my inability to walk. The other big difference was that hers was a lot less used than mine. She played games from time to time but had nothing like my devotion to them. Besides, she was still in school and that took up way more of her time.

  Speaking of school, homework had been her obvious focus, algebra problems glowing on the monitor of her desktop. As another bit of homebrew decorating attempt, Chrissy had covered every spare space on her monitor not needed for functionality with green electrical tape. If you couldn’t tell, my sister loved the color green. It was by far her favorite.

  She had spun her threadbare office chair to look toward the door as I rolled in. Though I couldn’t see her mouth, I could still see the smile in her vibrant blue eyes.

  “Wow *zzkrk* you don’t look so good. Are you *brrrt* having to share dinner with me tonight?”

  “Ugh,” I said as I rolled my eyes, “don’t make me feel worse. I feel horrible that you have to eat that stuff.”

  She pushed up to her feet, favoring her natural arm for support, as I rolled over to her desk. “Oh, don’t be like *zzzzz* that. Really, it’s not any different than the *ssssstf* stuff you eat.” She shrugged. “It’s all synth, right?”

  “I know but” - I sighed - “chalk it up to an overly developed sense of guilt.”

  Another electronic fit of giggles. “You? *zzk* Guilty? Never!”

  Rolling my eyes, I pointed my finger at her and waggled it with exaggerated threat. “You’re not too big to put over my knee, little lady.”

  She matched my eye roll with her own as she leaned over to hug me. It felt good to feel her warmth and bad when I felt the coldness of her prosthetic arm. No, I didn’t cause that traffic accident, but the human mind isn’t so easy to absolve of guilt when it gets going. After all, I was the big brother. It was my job to take care of her.

  “So are we *zzt* done changing the *brzt* subject?” she said as she pulled back, rocking on her heels. “You didn’t answer my *qqqzzt* question.”

  I parried with a smirk and a smart comment. “No, I’m not sharing dinner with you.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she thwapped me in the ear, fortunately with her flesh-and-blood finger. “You know, what I meant *ttttzzz*, smart butt! What’s *zzz* wrong?”

  The big problem was that I couldn’t tell her. Well, I wasn’t supposed to. I had agreed not to. “Adult stuff, Chrissy. It’s nothing you have to worry about.”

  “Oh, come on!” Her aggrieved teenaged cry echoed to the heavens as she did a proper flounce back into her chair. “I’m not a *zzzkkk* kid anymore, Max! You can actually *ttttzzz* tell me stuff now.”

  I rolled up next to her and shrugged. “Sorry. I promised Roxanne. You should blame her.” Yes, I did indeed throw my nurse under the bus. It was okay, she was getting paid for it.

  Chrissy’s accusatory glare softened a little, and what I knew to be a sigh (it was more of a constant hiss of static to the untrained ear) issued out of her face mask. “Ugh, fine. *brrzk* So at least entertain me, Maxie, now that *yyyzzz* you’ve got me upset.”

  I let out a laugh. “If you want entertainment, your boring-old brother is not going to be much help. All I do is play video games and pay bills.”

  “No, you play *zzt* one game, Max.” Chrissy leaned forward in her chair very, very carefully settled the chin of her mask in her hand, elbows resting on her knees. “And your *zzrt* Elementalis stories are always *zzz* fun.”

  Settling into my wheelchair, I mulled over my last few days in-game. If I were going to have any stories
she hadn’t heard, it would be there. The thing was there wasn’t anything really amusing about these quests. Honestly, this last run into the forest had me more thoughtful than excited. Still, I wanted to give Chrissy what she wanted. Her eyes bored into me as my mind tumbled through everything that had happened until I finally had an idea of what might do the trick.

  “Well, I don’t have any good team-wipe tales for you but something did happen that I think will make you happy.” That got her attention and her eyes smiled again. “Okay, you know how I’ve never used my friends list for actual friends, right?”

  She nodded with another electric titter. “Max the businessman.”

  “Right,” I grinned. “So you will be shocked to hear that I have three actual friends now. We’ve been questing for days now.”

  “What the *krkzt* what?” Chrissy almost fell out of her chair (and I would have felt horrible if she had). “My brother, the soulless *zzt* tanking automaton, has friends now?”

  My grin crept into a smile. “I know, it is hard to believe. It’s true though.”

  Balancing herself properly, she returned to a forward lean. “Now I need *zkrt* details, Max. All. The. Details.”

  “We don’t have all night, Chris, not with your homework. Besides, Roxanne is hard at work slaving over our food.” Her eyes went into big-eyed plead mode, and I sighed. “Okay, okay, we can gossip for a bit if it will make you happy.”

  “Yes, yes, it will,” she said with a nod, managing to avoid a crackle of feedback this time.

  “Okay, well, there’s Burndall.” Chrissy snickered at the name, and I couldn’t blame her. “He’s an Ember Sorcerer who decided to swing around swords for some reason.”

  “Cons-*szzzzzi*-dering you swing around a flag, you *zzt* don’t have room to complain!”