by Dean Henegar
Limitless Lands
Book III: Retribution
Dean Henegar
Copyright © 2019 by Dean Henegar
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Table of Contents
Map of Hayden’s Knoll
Introduction
Dedication
Recap
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Afterword
Map of Hayden’s Knoll
Introduction
Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirt of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory.
General George S. Patton
Dedication
Just over fourteen years ago, I received a phone call from my mother. My father had not been well, and she was concerned about his spotty memory. The call confirmed our worst fears: my father had Alzheimer’s disease. I was devastated; my father had always been my best friend, and he was the type of man I had always aspired to be. He was a kind and quiet man, funny, and brilliant. He had only a high-school education, but he taught himself engineering and—without a degree—helped to design the stealth bomber and space shuttle. He was a man of faith, dedicated to his family, and faithfully married to my mother from the time they were teenagers.
I moved my family from California—where I had been born and raised—to Tennessee, where my parents had retired to. I wanted my dad to experience his grandkids before the disease took him from us. I wanted him to spend his last days surrounded by the family that loved him. Unfortunately, with Alzheimer’s, the last days are slow in coming. The family was forced to watch the slow-motion death of my father, a process that took years. During those years, I was called up to active duty in the Army for training. When I returned from training six months later, the man I knew was gone, replaced by a frightened man who no longer recognized his own son. My father died a year after that. The passing of an Alzheimer’s patient is both relief and sadness: relief that the suffering for both patient and family is over, and sadness over what has been lost.
The experience with my father has helped shape the storyline of Raytak and the concept of using VR to interact with brain-damaged patients. Perhaps one day this disease and others like it will be eradicated and no other family will have to suffer with these things. This book is dedicated to my father, Larry Henegar, and to all those families dealing with and caring for a loved one afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease.
Recap
I would recommend you read book 1 if you are new to the series before starting this book. Book 1 is available here, http://www.amazon.com/dp/b07g7gwffl, on Amazon. Should you decide not to, or if it has been some time since you have read the previous books, here is a quick recap of what has happened.
The year is 2085 and great strides have been made in technology and gaming. Virtual Reality games are now the most popular form of entertainment in the world. The top Virtual Reality (VR) gaming company, Qualitranos, has launched its newest title, Limitless Lands. Limitless Lands is the first VR game to be controlled by an advanced Artificial Intelligence.
Qualitranos and the medical device corporation Meditronax have co-developed a state-of-the-art life-support medpod for critically ill patients. The AI used in the Limitless Lands game is also used to control the medpods, administering medication and controlling experimental nanobots. While they are treated, the AI creates a comforting virtual environment for the patient to experience.
The first medpod is used on one of the last remaining combat veterans in the United States. Colonel James Raytak was days away from death and his 93-year-old body and mind were fading fast. Colonel Raytak is signed up for the program by his son, Trey, who also works for Qualitranos and heads the team developing the medpod. The test is a success and the patient improves daily with the care of the AI. What the parties involved don’t know is that the AI was having trouble restoring damaged memories. In order to acquire the data it needs to repair the memory gaps, the AI ports Raytak into the Limitless Lands game to monitor his responses while he plays. Raytak unlocks the unique commander class in-game and enjoys playing, leading his fantasy army against various foes.
Raytak makes friends with several other players in the game, including an aspiring paladin named Jacoby Stone, a 10-year-old kid playing the halfling druid Yendys, the halfling rangers Drake and Quimby, and finally Delling, who is playing another unique class . . . town mayor. Raytak assists Mayor Delling in defending and helping to rebuild the town of Hayden’s Knoll after it is destroyed by a player guild called the Bloody Blades.
The group fights off other players, goblins, a corrupted dryad, and eventually a group of giant spiders led by a boss creature named Vhareax the Fangweb Sire. During the battle with the spiders, Raytak’s forces are nearly destroyed, having already defended some goblin miners near the town. His last few units are saved by another player bringing in reinforcements at the last minute.
This new player turns out to be Ty, Raytak’s roommate in the VA hospital, who has been accepted as the second test subject in the medpod program. Ty, an old combat veteran Marine gunnery sergeant, knows little about gaming, but he does have a lifetime of experience in real combat. The two elderly soldiers proceed with their quest to play the game while the AI attempts to repair their damaged minds and bodies. Just at the end of book 1, a discovery is made by Lou, the head tech assigned to the medpod project. Lou discovers that the AI has, without their knowledge, ported the two patients into the game.
In Book 2: Conquest, Raytak is tasked with helping his friend Delling unify the zone of Hayden’s Knoll under the banner of the Imperium. Raytak faces incursions by Drebix tribesmen and finds the true enemy is not the tribesmen but a band of gnolls that have begun to raid the area. Raytak helps defeat the gnolls and brokers a tenuous peace with the nearby Drebix tribe. On his way back from defeating the gnolls, Raytak finds shelter from a storm in an abandoned farm. In an old journal, he learns about the troubles of the previous tenants, and he and his men are attacked by ghouls. Raytak and his remaining soldiers are killed, and ghouls that attacked him become more powerful.
After respawning back in the town of Hayden’s Knoll, Raytak has Delling give a quest to defeat the ghouls to a band of adventurers. During this time, Raytak learns more about Delling’s school contest at his university.
One of the other students competing with Delling plays a character in game called Narbos the Grimm. Narbos seeks to sabotage Delling and the other players from his school by using the vast resourc
es of the guild Chaotic Outcomes. Narbos is racing to conquer his zone and arranges to have both Raytak and Delling assassinated by another player in order to slow their progress in game. Narbos sees to it that blame for the assassination is placed on Raytak’s previous foes, the Bloody Blades.
The leader of the Chaotic Outcomes guild, Vhellia, works for a company that is trying to see if there is money to be made in controlling and selling resources in a virtual game. The company funds the guild for a time and then decides the potential bad publicity from Narbos’ actions is not worth the risk, cancelling the project. Vhellia dissolves the guild and leaves Narbos without his source of funds. Narbos is now left to his own devices. Narbos then alludes to several schemes he has in place to take Raytak out of the picture and leave Haden’s Knoll open to conquest.
Raytak is notified by Delling that the adventurers sent to defeat the ghouls have failed and the ghouls have now grown into a threat to the entire zone. Raytak mobilizes his newly upgraded forces and is joined by several other players to fight the ghoul threat. Raytak, Ty, Jacoby, Drake, Quimby, and Yendys are joined in the quest by two new characters, Kathala and Nitor. Kathala is a healer and Nitor is a type of bard called a skald.
The party faces an epic battle against the ghoul lord and his army of undead, including a giant zombie hydra. The players are victorious, barely, and Yendys has the honor of the final blow that ends the ghoul lord. As the book closes, Raytak’s son, Trey, receives a call from his friend Lou, who has found something interesting while reviewing game footage. He finds that Trey’s daughter is the one playing the character Yendys and she knows she is playing with her grandfather. Raytak doesn’t know he’s playing with his own granddaughter as the AI masks any revealing information from him. Now the stage is set and Narbos’ machinations are about to come to fruition . . .
Chapter 1
Narbos began the long walk back to the town of Bharga. His forces were shattered. The only survivors other than himself were the eighteen executioners he kept as his personal bodyguard. Six-hundred of his reavers, forty mercenaries, and a dozen player allies were destroyed in the failed attack. The guild, Chaotic Outcomes, was dissolved and only the level six necromancer Darkfallow remained by his side.
This is only a minor setback, Narbos thought to himself as he began to scheme on the trek back to his capital. Since he started playing the game, Narbos was able to gain control of most of the zone, yet this last city of Haven resisted him. The AI had set several quests for other players in the area and their interference proved to be the straw that broke the mukok’s back. His troops would respawn, and he was very close to gaining another level, so Narbos was not overly concerned. The town of Haven would be his once his forces were rebuilt and upgraded.
“Well, Breaker, at least with the guild dissolving, the AI should reduce the quests in Haven that oppose us. With the quests gone, most of the players will drift off to other adventures. Fighting against just the town’s forces should be a cakewalk for us once we’re up to full strength again in a few days,” Narbos said. The non-player character, or npc, captain of his executioners, Breaker was one of the few named npcs he had found among his followers. It had been strange, at first, talking to npcs like a real person when there were no other players around. Narbos didn’t care. He liked to immerse himself in the game, playing his class of overlord to its fullest.
Breaker nodded his head in acknowledgement. The executioners were unable to speak. Under their helms, the lips of the executioners were sewn shut. Narbos believed the gruesome visage was yet another attempt by the game to portray his forces as an evil group, despite Narbos considering himself solidly in the neutral category.
“Get him! Kill the oppressor!” A voice shouted from the hedges bordering the roadway that Narbos and his party were walking along. Rising from their concealment, a player accompanied by a dozen npcs attacked. Narbos scanned their information as his executioners formed a protective perimeter and awaited their master’s orders.
Targen, Level 4 Fire Mage.
Haven Border Guard, Level 5 (11): The border guard of Haven scour the areas around the town looking for danger. In times of war the border guard use their skills at tracking and concealment to ambush foes. They are adept at ranged combat and like to use hit and run tactics.
Haven Border Guard Sergeant, Level 6: The sergeants in the border guard direct and support their soldiers, granting small buffs to the warriors under their command.
A volley of arrows flew in from the border guard. They were all equipped with short bows, and they used an ability to fire a second volley immediately after the first.
Haven Border Guard has activated
Narbos quickly dismissed the prompts, leaving the system to display only ones that affected him directly. He would have to remember to permanently set notification prompts to be paused while he was in battle. He hadn’t set it that way yet due the fact that personal fighting was something he did very little of. Having the overlord class meant he could send his minions to fight for him, rarely dirtying himself with direct combat. Pulling from his mana pool, Narbos cast an instant spell to increase defense against ranged attacks. Many of his class spells were geared toward keeping him alive while directing his forces.
The sergeant of the border guard commanded half his archers to fire at Narbos directly. Several of the arrows aimed at him deflected off the invisible barrier, while several more were stopped by the magically armored robes he wore. One arrow did crack through his defenses with enough force to penetrate his robes.
You have been hit by an arrow from the Haven Border Guard . . .
Narbos turned off all damage prompts as the arrow stung him. His pain settings were at ten percent and he was glad now that his ego hadn’t talked him into setting it at the max of thirty. He could only imagine what a real arrow’s damage would have felt like if only ten percent hurt this much. Looking at what was facing him, Narbos began to order his minions.
“Charge them! You four, protect me directly,” Narbos commanded, sending fourteen of his executioners at the foe. The executioners were dressed in all black. Even their bronze chainmail armor was dyed to match. They wore hardened leather helms that covered most of their face, yet revealed a sinister red glow from the eye slits. The executioners carried large two-handed axes made of crude bronze. There were no war cries or shouts of rage as they moved silently and quickly toward their foes. Only the jingling of their armor and the tromp of their boots was heard. The glowing eyes were a physical manifestation of the fear aura the executioners had and was one the abilities that Narbos had splurged for, his minions now reducing the morale of any opponents in view of them. He had upgraded the executioners several times as he leveled, unlike the reavers which had received no attention so far.
The border guards fired off another volley, but this time they all aimed at the approaching executioners. Despite numerous hits, only a few executioners had their health drop to the half-way mark. The considerable level advantage the executioners held meant that they had a much larger health pool than the weaker border guards they were facing.
The fire mage had not been idle during this time, channeling power to a spell he now released. The spell hit just after the arrows reached their targets. A small ball of flame surged toward the executioners, growing larger as it approached. The ball had grown to the size of a basketball when it hit. The flash of an explosion and a wave of heat blanketed the line of approaching executioners. The damage from the fireball was too much for five of the already wounded executioners and they dropped to the ground in a charred heap. Three others caught in the edge of the blast dropped down to only twenty-five percent health.
“There will be none of that, little fire mage!” Narbos threatened while he finished his own spell. Behind the mage, a hazy portal opened. Six reavers leapt through the portal, charging the fire mage with a roar. T
he reavers were Narbos’ weakest troops, having no armor and pitifully low-leveled weapons. The archers and sergeant of the guard drew their short swords and began to attack the reavers, defending the vulnerable caster and quickly cutting down the six reavers that had appeared.
Narbos smiled as his summoned force was hacked to pieces. The foolish “hero” had done exactly as he had hoped. Stopping to hack down a minor threat had given the executioners time to close into melee range. Their axes swung toward the guard, who should have been pulling back and skirmishing instead of getting dragged into melee with the weak reavers. Most of the blows dealt massive damage and dropped several health bars down to only a sliver. Two of the blows from the executioners were critical hits, cutting off the heads of their victims. One of the visual effects options he had unlocked for his executioners was to have them decapitate any victim that died from a critical hit. The option didn’t offer any other benefits, but was fun to watch and helpful as a tool to identify when critical hit death blows happened . . . just watch for flying heads.
“Disengage and fight from range!” the sergeant of the guard quickly ordered.
Narbos couldn’t let them do that. His forces would be cut to ribbons while the faster ranged Haven border guards kited his executioners around the area. His mana pool shrunk to below half as a spell flung from Narbos’ hand. Realizing that his forces lacked much ranged capability, Narbos had invested in a spell that would help even the odds. A black ball of wriggling tendrils flew from his hand, landing amongst the border guard. The ball expanded as it hit, and black tendrils rose from the ground grasping at any in their path. The tendrils seemed to skirt around the executioners, the spell somehow knowing friend from foe. All but two of the Haven guard became tangled in the tendrils. The spell not only restrained its victims but also bored into their flesh, slowly draining health.
“Get away if you can! Back to Haven, everyone,” Targen overcame the black tendrils digging into his calf and finished casting a spell. A burst of flame appeared at his feet and the mage disappeared, flashing back into view with another puff of flame thirty feet away from the grasping tendrils. Then he turned and ran, joined by the two guards who had been outside the area of effect of the tendrils.