Aeon Chronicles Online_Book 1_Devil's Deal

by Dante Sakurai

  “Damn.” Rowan punched the wall—then regretted it two seconds later. He had scraped his knuckles on the rough stone. Pricks of blood appeared where the skin ripped.

  This was all… someone’s fault.

  Roth.

  No, not Roth. He’d been nothing but helpful, explaining everything he knew about the game including the damn server architecture.

  The dwarf?

  Rowan sighed. It was all his own fault—no one else’s.

  He needed to play far more intelligently from now on. Not like a pig, not like a rabid wolf, not like a naive level one newbie. He’d underestimated the level of immersion the game offered and paid the price of it with no second chances, setting himself back by a day or more. He didn’t have the starter items and his reputation with the town took a major hit on top of his generated backstory. It was like playing on extra-hard despite his special status as a future raid boss.

  The wooden door slammed open. Rowan stood in an instant, neutral face equipped.

  The old dwarf again. Rowan deflated. “What do you want?”

  “Hmph, I outta…” The dwarf shook his head and tossed a sack in front of the cell door. “Have your stuff. If it wasn’t for the king’s binding decree I would’ve burned it.” He spat on the sack and marched out of the jail before Rowan could make a retort.

  “That little fucker.”

  But a break was a break. The dwarf’s death will have to wait.

  Rowan dashed to the bars and reached, his hands barely fitting through the spaces. The sack was made of neat, woven straw and crumpled at his grasp. He then sifted through the contents, finding a small, leather pouch with a strap, two paper parchments, and a glowing glass orb the size of an eye. Ten silver coins also rattled at the bottom.

  Scanning the parchments, he ascertained they were simple newbie guides and tips on the game and offered no real information apart from the time being compressed ten-fold whilst in-game. He tossed them back into the sack and eyed the orb, holding it in the palm of his hand. He Examined.

  Orb of storage (Basic)

  Allows for the storage of up to five items. Crumbles upon item extraction. (Intonate “release items” and will it so)

  “Release items,” Rowan said and willed it, similar to how he had cast Examine.

  The orb flashed white once and three items popped into existence and clunked to the floor. The orb crumbled to dust.

  Useful. He’d have to learn how to make these. The orb cut down on space and weight by many orders of magnitude.

  A sheathed bronze sword, a flask of red liquid, and a rusty bronze buckler laid before him. Again, typical newbie starter items.

  Rowan snatched up the pouch and Examined.

  [Soulbound] Starter Pouch

  Contains twenty item spaces. Can hold stackable items and has 1 currency slot. (Desire an item to retrieve and simply reach into the pouch)

  A smart design Rowan admitted. He stuffed his silver coins, health potion, and beginner guides into the bag. He strapped the pouch to his waist and eyed the sword and shield, unsure of how to get them into the pouch. A minute later, he discovered items shrink as they approach the opening.

  Now, for that special item.

  This better be good.

  Rowan focused on the inventory icon and willed it to open.

  An interface appeared, twenty square spaces and a counter for copper, silver, and gold jiggling for a couple of seconds. One new item sat in the first square, an exclamation mark in the corner. Rowan prepared for the worst and Examined.

  [Soulbound] Strange Onyx Amulet

  A silver amulet that holds a cracked onyx gem. Some say they hear a whisper if they listen closely.

  Rarity: Unique

  Durability: Indestructible

  Reduces the ambient temperature around the wearer.

  +2 Magical Power.

  ???

  An unidentified stat? That was new. Rowan hadn’t played a game with this kind of mechanic before. He stowed the thought and pulled the amulet out of the pouch. A wave of chill traveled up his arm and settled on his shoulders. He held the amulet to his ear. Many heartbeats passed before a faint female whisper licked his lobes. She spoke in an unknown language.

  However… the whisper sounded similar to those he heard when he received that first, enigmatic quest.

  Quest Update: Whispers From The Aether

  After finally receiving your starter pouch at great effort, you discovered it held a strange onyx amulet that whispers in a foreign language similar to those you heard before. Was this item meant for you or were you just a lucky kid who stumbled on a lost artifact?

  Growling, Rowan slapped away the prompt and threaded his head through the silver chain. The necklace dangled at his heart, a deep, cold well at the center of his being. The feeling was exhilarating. It more than made up for the puny +2 Magical Power.

  He flexed his hand, noticing his wound had healed. His health bar at the bottom left was back to 100%

  Good. Things were looking better. If only he wasn’t stuck in this jail cell for the rest of the day and night. The system time blinked at 4:23 PM game time.

  “Fucking hell,” he mumbled and decided to log out for a couple of hours. That time compression came in handy.

  Chapter 6

  Bastard Noble

  “Back already?” Rowan heard as the VR pod purred and shutdown.

  Hopping off the gel bed and shaking off a full-body, numb ache, Rowan found himself oddly out of breath. “I miscalculated.”

  “Oh?” Roth said, sitting at the table and reading a book. “Tell me more.”

  From the smug expression on Roth’s face, Rowan knew everything had been recorded on one of those invisible, hovering cameras and played in 10X speed on the wall monitor that was still turned on. He kept his breathing steady, already missing the onyx amulet that acted as a cool anchor. He couldn’t let the doctor manipulate him else he’d become another puppet on a string. Rowan intended to be no one’s puppet. Never a puppet.

  “The depth of the simulation is impressive,” Rowan said and lumbered over to his seat. He poured himself a cup of lukewarm tea—it’d been less than ten minutes since he had entered logged into Aeon Chronicle. That time compression would be something he’d need to get used to. It was nauseating in a way.

  Roth flipped a page. He was reading a book on neurology. “Continue. I’d like a report on your unique position in-game. You are the only person who knows how the AI controller is fulfilling the directives we set. The cameras were… less than helpful.” His words flowed steady, emotionless.

  Rowan gulped down the whole cup and poured another. “I’ve been given a backstory, a disowned, bastard noble sent to the countryside. The people don’t like me and I probably just made it worse but—”

  “A logical background for a villain,” Roth said, glancing up from his book.

  Disregarding the interruption, Rowan continued, “I got two quests upon arriving in town. The first is more of a side quest but I don’t know—something about these aetherial voices I heard when receiving it. The item is an onyx amulet that whispers a similar voice. It’s in a different language.” He stopped and drank. Did ten minutes take so much out of him? How would he last for days and months?

  “Take your time,” Roth said, “Your body will take a day or two to adjust to the presence of the nanobots. First, your immune system has to be programmed to accept a persistent presence…” He drawled on with another lecture.

  Rowan sat in silence, breathing, not listening. He hadn’t been this tired since regaining consciousness in the hospital. This new technology was a killer on the body. No wonder they had decided to drip feed it to the public.

  “…and eventually, you’ll be in better health with the nanobots than without,” Roth finished and grinned for a second. “Now, Rowan, continue. You were hearing voices?”

  “I was.” And he was sure he hadn’t gone mad like the quest description had suggested. “That’s about it for the
first quest. The second, an SSS difficulty, extremely long duration quest, The Frozen Calamity, requires me to journey north and activate three seals. If I succeed, it appears that there will be a worldwide event and I’ll be promoted to a raid boss, though I’ve already been given a tier zero world boss status.”

  Roth whistled. “That’s the one.” He clapped shut the book and slapped it onto the table, a vibrational shock-wave passing through Rowan’s elbows. He’d been leaning on the table for support. “You will need to time that quest so that it completes on the first or second day of the game’s release, June the first. Minus the time you spend in the real world sleeping, eating, and excessing, I estimate you will have slightly over a year of in-game time to complete it.”

  A year? That was plenty—especially if Rowan was playing Aeon Chronicles as his full-time job and more. His every waking thought would be dedicated to the game, plotting, brainstorming, dreaming up with ways to beat that damn level 200+ quest in his sleep. He smirked—a real smirk. “A year is plenty of time.”

  “How do you know?” Roth inclined his head. “As you said, you’ve been given a triple S difficulty quest. Not even I, or the lead engineer, knows how long that would take to complete. Right now, the most difficult quests to have ever been reported were both single S. They still haven’t been completed—in over six months. The pirate lord and bandit king, if you recall. And we have over two hundred thousand active beta players.”

  Oh. Well damn. Rowan’s confidence wilted. He was just a single player and full-scale raid teams couldn’t even defeat S difficulty bosses? “Can you delay the release?”

  “Are you making a joke, Rowan?”

  Hmm—that was indeed a stupid question. The pods had been shipped and scheduled for store launch. The release date had been hyped for over a year in the gaming magazine and likely other media outlets. “Yes, I was. I was meant to ask is there anything you could do for me in-game?” Rowan couldn’t believe he was asking for more advantages and possibly even cheats but here he was.

  Roth shook his head. “Is that what you really want? Even if we could force the AI controller to change the game for you, which we can’t—we can only issue highly generic directives, it’d jeopardize the integrity of the game. We want this to be a worldwide games revolution, remember that. Your story is, as written in your contract, you hack into the game and play without paying the monthly subscription. You wished to play as a villain and the AI controller deemed you worthy and granted your wish. That is all.”

  Frustration bubbled into Rowan’s skull. The void murmured in unison. It was unthinkable that he’d fail but the question had to be asked. “And what if I don’t make the deadline?”

  “You would really let me down?” Roth shot him a piercing look. “After everything I’ve done for you?”

  Classical emotional manipulation. Rowan had read and studied all these emotional chess-type maneuvers during the past year and a half. Fortunately, such attacks didn’t work on him anyway. He met Roth’s gaze, challenging those spectacles head-on. “There is a very real possibility of that happening, Roth, whether you or I like it or not.”

  After twenty, tense seconds, Roth chuckled. “Very true.”

  Rowan tried again, “Are you sure there’s nothing you can do to help me?”

  “Perhaps there is something,” Roth answered a bit too quickly, “but for now, I suggest you get back into your pod and not waste another real-world minute. And might I also suggest, use some of those credits we are so generously paying you to buy yourself some decent equipment.”

  Rowan considered it as he pulled himself up. It wasn’t a terrible idea—depending on how much decent equipment was selling for. “I’ll check the markets,” he said, hopping back into the pod.

  Roth stood and strode to the computer. “See that you do.” He tapped once on the Holo-Keyboard and the pod whirred to life.

  Thirty seconds later, without another round of injections, the room blacked out. The blue starscape faded in.

  LOGIN SUCCESSFUL: ROWAN BLACK

  Loading… Please wait

  Another half minute passed and Rowan once again stood in his stain-ridden cell. The sun had set and the temperature was freezing, amplified by the amulet at Rowan’s heart. He was tempted to chuck it into the pouch for the night but decided not for a quest update could trigger at any moment. Whispers From The Aether had piqued his curiosity and might be crucial for completing The Frozen Calamity. You’d never know in role-playing games like these.

  The system clock blinked at the top-right: 3:12 AM. The conversation with Roth had taken over an hour of real-world time, over ten in-game. The episode of heavy fatigue had cleared most of Rowan’s anger and overconfidence. He now could think with a clear mind.

  The guards were probably asleep except for a night-shift. The captain held the keys. Rowan doubted any low-ranking guard held a set—it’d be a too-easy target for a thieve. So he’d have to wait three or four hours till after breakfast. Maybe two if the captain rose early. Rowan couldn’t cut through stone or iron with bronze and he didn’t wish to flee the town yet. He’d need to wait for the captain. There was no other option: wait and make good use of this time.

  Rowan settled on going through all his character’s information and interface menus. He had to do this eventually so why not now?

  First—check his character sheet. He focused on the icon with a silhouette head to open, willing it so.

  The dialog appeared a heartbeat later, luminescent in the darkness.

  Name: Rowan Black

  Title: Bastard Noble Kid

  Race: Draconian-Human (focus to expand)

  Gender: Male

  Level: 1

  Class: None

  Boss Status: World, Tier 0 (Hidden)

  Fame: 53

  Faction: Kingdom of Draconis

  Health: 80 (1.0 regen/minute)

  Mana: 120 (10.0 regen/minute)

  Mana Type: Ice-Dark

  Stamina: 100 (5.0 regen/minute)

  Strength: 6

  Dexterity: 10

  Vitality: 8

  Magical Power: 14

  Magical Capacity: 12

  Control: 12

  Defense attributes hidden (focus to expand)

  Rowan glanced over the typical fantasy-esque stats, pausing only on his race, fame, mana type, control, and minimized defense attributes. He hadn’t seen those before and race attributes were always unique on a per-game basis. He focused on his race and a sub-dialog tacked onto the right edge of the character sheet.

  Draconian-Human (Unique)

  You are a hybrid, possessing traits from both Humans and Draconians. The former are mundane, common, and posses no major weaknesses or strengths while the latter are said to be from another world. Draconians are natural wielders of magic but are physically weak. They excel in professions which require high Magical Power, Magical Capacity, and Control.

  Race Traits

  One with the Mana: immunity to Mana burn and Mana feedback

  Magical Aptitude: spells which require Mana to cast gain +5% experience

  Natural Leader: +20% total Control

  Thin Skinned: +5% physical damage taken

  Draconian Blood: +30% damage taken from disease and poison

  Mediocre Jack of Trades: You are able to learn all professions. -35% experience gained in all professions

  Absolutely a caster race. But if Rowan wanted to play a tank or front-line fighter, it’d be doable but he’d end up gimped. 5% meant the difference between life and death in his experience. Plus he’d need to stock up on extra anti-poison and cure potions either way.

  He moved onto fame.

  Fame

  A measure of how widespread tales of you and your adventures are. Actions of how players and non-player characters react to your adventures contribute to how famous you are!

  Nothing extraordinary. This fame system was similar to many others. Good for bragging rights.

  Rowan focused on his mana type.
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  No dialog opened.

  He grunted and flickered his mind to control.

  Control

  This attribute is used by skills, passive skills, and professions that involve party support, rallying followers, and controlling minions and summons.

  Interesting. He’d need to find more information on summoner-type classes—perhaps on the forums? Rowan could see himself as a summoner-type as the world’s final boss. Maybe a dark-beastmaster or a necromancer or a demon lord if they were available. Most raid bosses commanded a legion of subordinates in their lairs and dungeons. And he’d need an army under command to beat back the hordes of players out for justice.

  The other stats were simple enough. Each boosted his physical body and/or increased another stat. Strength increasing his physical strength. Dexterity increasing his reaction-rate, stamina, and movement speed. Vitality increased his health points, effectively making his body more durable. Magical Power increased the damage dealt by spells. Magical Capacity increased his maximum mana, which he could feel a hint of flowing through his blood, a cool energy he couldn’t describe.