by Jason Cheek
THE TRUE ENEMY REVEALED
BOOK FIVE
OF
THE WORLD
Copyright 2019 Jason Cheek
Published by Jason Cheek on Amazon
Cover Art by Leonardo Black
ISBN-13:
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Amazon.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Note from the Author
Changes to the Story
Map of the World
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Character Sheet
Startum Ironwolf’s Gear
Character List
Glossary
About Jason Cheek
Connect with Jason Cheek
Post Credit Scene
A Note from the Author
I hope you enjoy the story and apologize in advance for the grammar and proofreading mistakes that are sure to be a part of this work. Being an ‘Indie Author’ typically means that you do not have the extra money to pay for a professional editor or proofreader and end up doing all of the work yourself. While I do the best that I can to find mistakes, I know well my lack of ability in the proofreading, spell-checking, and editing arena. At the same time, I have done my best with the tools available to clean up the story for publishing to the best of my ability.
Luckily enough, I had help from Eric (Totenliste), a fan who freely offered his expertise for getting book five cleaned up for release. He was also recently joined by Chela-Rene who was a huge help in getting the grammar corrected and encouraged me to enhance areas of the story that I’d initially left with less detail. Steven is another fan that helps with ideas and concepts. All three of them beta read the story to make sure everything sounds right, besides listening to me when I’d have those bad days that writers get, especially when you have a group of authors ganging up against you to do their best to block your work on Amazon, Goodreads, and Audible.
This issue was something I was ignorant about as a reader of the genre. Now though, the more I learn about how a number of established authors try to block new authors from entering the genre, or learn about the groups of authors ganging up on new authors and choose to say nothing against it. It’s depressing, to say the least. Truly, this book would have never been written if not for the fans who enjoy the series. Your continued support truly makes a difference and you have my heartfelt thanks.
As you enjoy this story, I ask that if something does stand out grammatically that you let me know at [email protected] so that I can make the necessary corrections needed to make this book as enjoyable to read as possible. Also, if you enjoy the story, please make sure you post a positive rating on Amazon. Even with book five, it makes a difference. Only in this way does this let us ‘Indy Authors’ know that our stories are appreciated and helps to motivate us to write more. It also enables new readers to find our works and helps to stop these established authors who would stop ‘Indy Authors’ from breaking into the writing field.
Also, I want to offer a quick apology for ending this book earlier than anticipated. There is just so much story that it couldn’t all be told in one telling. At least, not as an Indie Author who doesn’t have complete control of my audible books. The books can’t be too long or I’ll have issues with getting voice actors to do the audiobooks. The good news is that this story is as long as book four and full of adventure. Also, I’m already well into the next book, so you can expect book six to follow this one relatively quickly and know that it will be of a similar length.
Books five and six are about a PKer war between guilds. Some parts of the story will focus on the details needed to take out a group of players, which can be very difficult in an MMORPG and include a lot of fighting. At the same time, there is a huge PVE story that goes along with the PKing action that will affect this part of the world. Please understand that not all of the proceeding novels will be this war focused, but when there is a massive war underway, I will always do my best to write the full story. In my mind, there is no other way to write the scenes and do them justice. At least, not if you want to keep true to the gaming MMORPG genre.
Also, I would like to thank everyone for allowing me the freedom to explore a number of different adventures and topics in these stories. Whether it’s Star’s romantic misadventures with Fylreh, the disturbing Meer Lizards, the real-time strategy aspect of the story, self-aware NPCs, or the new types of monster empires I’m introducing. Many of the ideas and adventures cover concepts I’ve never read in other stories within the genre. I want to explore every exciting dream I’ve ever had of gaming. Like a Captain Kirk of a fantasy MMO universe. As long as everyone finds the stories interesting, I will keep on writing about Star’s exploration of The World.
Also, a special shout out to Elizabeth for help with creating the Kopy-Katz species that shows up at the end of the series. I was struggling over finishing the creation of the new species and naming them, and she helped out immensely with that. And another special shout out to Christopher who helped with some excellent ideas for the story and the creation of his Orion character.
I’d like to thank any other fans who made comments that allowed me to tweak the story or go back and correct the more notable mistakes that needed to be corrected. For those who can’t see the updates, please delete the book from your device’s local cache and re-download it or Amazon has an area in your account where you can force the updates onto your device. My books always tend to be a work-in-progress for the editing side.
Amazon does some odd stuff to pictures, so, unfortunately, the map in the E-book is tiny. You can check my website for the updated image, http://www.thecheekyfellow.com/home-blog/the-current-map-of-the-world
Lastly, I’d like to address a few points that came up in reviews: (This won’t be an issue for the next several books, but I think it’s important to list part of this again.)
There are some people who think that Startum Ironwolf disrespects women and thinks they are inferior to men. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The one great thing about video games is that there are no differences between the sexes, ages or races. Men and women are absolutely equal on all levels. It is your choice of starts, your choice of class, how you distribute your stats and how you treat others in the game that is important.
In most online games, the golden rule is you have no idea who is really on the other side of that computer screen. Women play men, men play women and players play themselves. There is no prejudice except for what you bring with you into the game world. On the field of battle, you slaughter your enemies, period. There is no consideration of sex, race, religion or age. Over many years of gaming, I’ve had so many online friends from all around the world that it is truly amazing at times when I think about it.
Please understand, Startum is a guy in his early twenties. He likes women, he finds them beautiful and he enjoys seeing that beauty. There is nothing wrong with finding someone desirable, pretty, or sexy. In my experience, women do this the same as men. Enjoying beauty is not judging the worth of a person or t
heir capability. How you treat those people though is important. In Startum’s case, you have a first row seat to his every private thought. Also, as the game progresses, Star’s thought processes change along with his exploration of The World, especially after experiencing the horrors of book four and the need to prepare for the coming war that he sees looming on the horizon. Also, in many ways, he’s growing up as a person throughout the series.
Also, for pictures of the concept art for many of the characters, the in real life LAN parties, and the friends that are the concept personalities for many of the characters in the story, you can find that here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007596607095
One final point, if you like the story, please leave a good review on Amazon and Goodreads for the books. Not just mine, but any Indie Author you like, especially if you want to see new stories coming out that are not the cookie-cutter-copies that seem to be so rampant in the genre. The only way you will encourage this to happen is by leaving reviews for the authors you like. It lets everyone know that they’re telling a good story, besides being the only way to protect them from the established authors in the genre that try to block new stories.
I have personally experienced this type of harassment and trolling since releasing The World series. Every book, whether audible or eBook has been repeatedly attacked. Not just book one, but every proceeding book in the series. Even now, they continuously check my blog to know when my newest book is going to be released to leave bad reviews. Truly, it’s like battling an in real-life Syndicate guild. Your support has been all that has stopped their bullying from blocking my stories.
Changes to the Story
Update to Star's character sheet to have the skill: Exotic Animal Handling Level 15
Update to Star's character sheet to have the Professional Title: Necromancer (Dark Magic)
*This will grow to be Death Knight and Death Lord and et cetera. I had to do some thinking on how this would work.
Update to the spell: Frost Nova (50 Mana) – Instant cast - Blasts enemies within 10 yards of the caster for 100% Spell power and freezes them in place for up to 8 sec. This spell does not affect friendlies within range of the AOE. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. 30-second cooldown. Requires frost magic skill level 5.
*Updated description to note that the spell does not affect friendly targets within AOE range:
Update to the spell: Resurrection (1000 Mana) – 60-sec cast - Brings a dead player back to life with 25% health and mana. Cannot be cast when in combat. Range 40 yards.
*Update to the spell: Resurrect: This first level resurrect spell should have been 60 seconds. The spell's cast time has been updated to reflect this change:
Update to Startum Ironwolf's dagger: the amount of health leached has been changed to 20 points
Leeching Dagger of Piercing
Item Quality: Good
Item Type: Common
Attack: One-hand Edge
Weapon Type: Dagger
Damage: 34-41*
Durability: 100/100
Weight: 2.3 kg
-Ignores target’s armor.
*20 points of health leeched per second for 15 seconds on each successful strike.
Update to Startum Ironwolf's Talisman: Duration changed from thirty seconds to ten.
Talisman of Yeenoktu
Item Quality: Epic
Item Type: Crafted
Location: Inventory
Durability: 400/400
Weight: 0.5 kg
+10 Strength
+10 Stamina
*Token from a Gnoll Priest of the Demon Lord Yeenoktu the Soul Crusher.
**When activated by a non-believer, makes the wearer invulnerable to all elemental spheres of magic, melee and ranged attacks, poisons and mental attacks for ten seconds. Can only be activated once every seven days.
**When activated by a Gnoll true believer, first effect: makes wearer invulnerable to all elemental schools of magic, melee and ranged attacks, poisons and mental attacks for ten minutes. Second effect: casts aura of the berserker on the entire group or raid. Can only be activated once daily.
Map of the World
Chapter One
(Sunday, May 4th /Day fourteen of The World)
My return home was a lot more relaxed than my ride to breakfast had been, I thought while enjoying the slight chill in the air on my motorcycle with my visor raised. The cold wasn’t bad enough for me to bitch about leaving my riding jacket at home when I’d run out this morning. It also helped to keep down the building excitement that was growing in my stomach about the upcoming PVP battle. When I say battle, I meant the all-out war that was being carried out against my best friend, Domenic.
While Domenic was a great player overall, he always struggled at the start of new games. I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times I had to save his ass in Anarchy Online with his Nanotech mage or in World of Warcraft with his Rogue. Well, at least those times he didn’t run a train on us. With his Nanotech mage, I ended up helping him restructure his attributes and got him into a set of tank armor with extra boosts to health. After that, he took out enemies left and right while enduring a shit-ton of damage. His Rogue, on the other hand, just required better training on how to pull and stealth. Once he got that down, Dom was scary as hell with the amount of damage he could push out. Even in StarCraft, I usually had to fly in and help him Evac his forces, but, once he got his industry base built up, he was beyond dangerous.
We were all top notch players but each of us had our faults that were usually picked on ad nauseam by our closest friends. I was usually the guy to beat in our group with Mike a close second or first depending on the game. My issues tended to be from playing female characters with a knack for finding troubled souls for our guild of misfit toys. For some reason they never let me live that down, even if they were one of the people I managed to pull into my inner circle of friends.
Pulling into the driveway of my complex, I felt the adrenaline pumping through my veins as I parked my bike in front of my apartment. The heartbreak and anxiety of the last few days was completely forgotten as I focused on the challenge at hand. There was nothing that I loved or hated more than PVP, especially when it was fighting against PKing assholes like The Syndicate or Chaos Storm. In many ways, battles like this were akin to a war of ideologies as it was to taking on a mutual enemy. There was nothing more challenging than playing against another player. These also weren’t going to be the no “Advanced” start noobs that I took out in the Light Elf area around Delonshire. No, this battle was going to be against professional gamers who had the same level, or likely even higher, that I did of stats and experience.
Many players tended to pass on playing in situations where they were behind the eight ball and the underdog but not me. I loved the challenge. There was nothing like the rush of taking down higher level players with skill and tactics. I was that gamer who slammed their head against the proverbial wall until I smashed through it. It didn’t matter how overwhelming the odds were against me or how many times you killed me, I didn’t give in. I just got back up in your face until I figured out how to take you down.
Before I’d even stepped through the door, I’d already taken off my shirt and was working on my shoes as I entered my apartment. Quickly, I stripped down to the buff leaving a trail of clothing throughout the house while I prepared my water and took a last-minute bio break before donning my suit. Within minutes of walking through the door, I was strapped in my Egg and starting up the game.
Running Pod Diagnostic – Complete
Synchronizing controller units - Complete
Neuro Synchronization - Complete
Initializing virtual environment …
Within seconds The World took shape around me as I was again lying on my Worg-hide blanket in the storage room of the Wind Dancer. Calls for shortening the sail and preparing to dock could be heard from the upper deck, as I quickly pulled up the NPC Recruiter tab to make some final selections. A
fter the last battle, I was flush with cash. Hurriedly, I went through and selected every NPC I could possibly purchase. Basically, that was twenty-five of each of my new races, which now included; Sea Elves to Beastkin. Verifying that my other purchases were fine, I studied the summary of my bids.
So far, no one had bothered to bid against my purchase of seven hundred Half-Elves from the general pool that I’d ordered. Thankfully, the rest of my special unit purchases were safe against being outbid, since each order of twenty-five Centaurs, Gnomes, and Gnomelings were unique only to me, due to the secret quests I’d completed earlier. It would have been sweet to have had the option to purchase Dark Elves, Dwarves, and Humans, However, it looked like the game didn’t count an individual as a purchasable race, unless you’d acquired an actual full group. Obviously, the rules on that were somewhat complex or I’d have gotten quests for the Dark Elf Shadow Scouts and Dwarven Artillery Unit.
Even more annoying was that the various Beastkin only counted as one group. Instead of having the option to purchase individual groups of twenty-five Wolfkin, Badgerkin, et cetera, they were combined as a single unit. Basically, the twenty-five Beastkin I could purchase would be a mixture of all the Beastkin I had available from the group that I’d initially received the quest for. Meaning, that if I managed to get a Ratkin and Bearkin individual later on as a vassal, they wouldn’t then be part of my purchasing option from the NPC Recruiter, unless, of course, I received a quest stating that I had the option to purchase them individually.