by Evan Klein
Immersion Online: Great Realm
The Noob
By Evan Klein
Book 1
Immersion Online: The Noob
By Evan Klein
Copyright © 2021 Evan Klein
All rights reserved.
Print Edition ISBN:
Cover design by Karen Dimmick / ArcaneCovers.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by an means, electronic, mechanical, recorded, photocopied, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Please refer all copyright questions to the author, Evan Klein, at [email protected]
Table of Content
Chapter 1: A Very Shitty Day
Chapter 2. Job Offer
Chapter 3: Character Creation
Chapter 4: Out Of The Frying Pan; Whacked Over The Head With A Frying Pan
Chapter 5: Story One – Attack on Freehold Village
Chapter 6: Story Two – Three of a Perfect Pair
Chapter 7 – Running the Wild
Chapter 8 – Battle Plans
Chapter 9: Warband
Chapter 10: The Battle in the Woods
Chapter 11: Preparations
Chapter 12: The Burning Bush – Skelter Battle Part 1
Chapter 13: Surprise Ending – Skelter Battle Part 2
Chapter 14: Negotiations
Chapter 15: The Final Chapter
Epilogue 1: Grinding Levels
Epilogue 2: Questions Answered
Epilogue 3- Trope
Epilogue 4: Death
Epilogue 5. Party Time
Epilogue 6: The Final One
Postscript: Hearn’s Tale
Chapter 1: A Very Shitty Day
A biting pain gnawed into my chest and down my left arm. I gasped for breath. Co-workers and paramedics hovered above me like apparitions. Images of Bethany slowly dying of breast cancer; my daughter Amber cursing me and slamming the door as she walked out; the District Attorney threatening to jail me – slid through my mind like a poisonous snake. The cosmos could take me, returning me to atoms and nothingness. Darkness fell over me like the lid of a casket closing.
I awakened abruptly to the cacophonous din of machines whirring and doctors shouting orders. I looked up into the sharp green eyes of a grey haired nurse and mumbled,” What happened?”
She looked down at me and said quite honestly without pulling punches (like an old pro at breaking bad news) that, “Mr. Mason, you had a massive heart attack. Luckily, you were at work where there are trained responders; several of them began CPR before the paramedics took over. Your heart stopped beating. It had to be shocked twice to get it restarted. You were dead for sixty seconds. But not to worry, you are going to be fine. We inserted several nanites into your heart. They are eating away at your clogged arteries, repairing the damage as we speak. You should be recovered in about a day.”
“Dead for sixty seconds. Nothing to worry about,” I repeated in my mind. Before I had time to ask her any questions (I had a ton of them), she excused herself, stating she would return later. She flew out like a spirit, and I was left alone with the whirring and beeping of machines all around me. I must have dozed off because when I woke back up I saw Captain Mike Haggerty sitting next to my bed. He was around sixty years old, tall, muscular, with a full head of grey hair and a clean-shaven face. He was speaking with my daughter Amber who sat in a chair next to the window. She had her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail; dark bags outlined her bright blue eyes.
Haggerty had been my partner about twenty years back. He had risen through the ranks while I had hit the ceiling at detective second class. He was my boss and probably my only real friend.
“Look who is back with us,” Haggerty quipped. “How you feeling buddy?”
“I guess alright since I am still alive, “I responded. “Doctor said I died for about a minute, so I guess I feel better than death.”
“Amber,” I said reaching out my hand towards her. I thought she wouldn’t take it at first, recoiling like from the stinger of a scorpion. She was probably still mad at me over what she had coined, “Your great failure!”
She took my hand, and even shocked me when she leaned over and kissed my forehead. “I am glad you’re going to be okay Dad. I really am. Maybe now you’ll start to watch yourself. Knock off having beer and cheeseburgers every single day. Maybe start using the treadmill we all chipped in to buy you for your fiftieth.”
“Amber,” Haggerty said, “I think your dad gets the message.”
I could tell she wanted to continue berating me about my weight and bad lifestyle choices, especially over the last two plus years, but luckily the captain cut her off with a glance.
“I’m gonna try this time Amber,” I said. A small part of me even meant it. “Really I am.”
‘But cheeseburgers just taste so damn good!’ I thought
“Okay Dad,” she said. I could tell she had more to say but the captain asked quite nicely, “Amber, do you mind if I talk to your dad alone for a minute? It’s police business; about a case he was working on.”
“Okay,” she responded. “Though I can’t stay long. I’m leaving for Binghamton tomorrow morning and still haven’t packed. I’ll get a sandwich and be right back.” With that she walked off.
When she was out of earshot I cursed, “Shit! Forgot she was leaving for college tomorrow.”
“You just had a heart attack, Mace, so you may have been a bit preoccupied,” he responded.
“Maybe,” I stated, “but that is not a reason to forget that my only child is leaving for college tomorrow, especially after this so called gap year she just finished. Anyway, what is this bullshit about a case you need to discuss with me?”
He hesitated and cleared his throat. I wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “You’re fifty-three now, aren’t you? Thirty years total in the system. With thirty years you could retire with more than a three quarter pension, couldn’t you?”
“You want me to retire over one fucking heart attack?” I snapped.
“Maybe it’s a sign. Besides you can’t really run anymore because of your back and your knees. Your body is telling you it is time to try something new. And you have this Ferguson case looming over you and over the whole department. I don’t think it’s going to go your way. The D.A. really wants to nail you to the proverbial wall. That your style of policing is no longer acceptable. You know, we need to be kinder, gentler, all that crap.”
“You know I didn’t do a damn thing wrong. Ferguson was a psychopath. I saved the lives of his wife and two daughters. He was going to gut them like fish, and I am somehow the villain.”
“You put him in a coma Mace,” Haggerty responded.
“I’ve gone over this a hundred times. He attacked me from behind and I fought back. If I hadn’t put him down like a rabid dog he would have killed his wife and kids. I would do it again to save them.”
“I know. I know Mace. But the D.A. doesn’t see it that way. She’s got a real hard on for you.”
“You want me to retire so this all goes away. Well fuck you!” I shouted. “Besides what would I do with myself? Bad knees or not, I clear more cases than anyone else in Major Crimes.”
“I know that Mace. You’re a great detective; one of the best. I’m afraid if you come back that your ticker is going to give out because you are still crazy enough to chase a suspect down the street. If anything happened to you on the job, Amber would never speak to me again. I got something else to tell you; I’m retiring at the end of the month
. I won’t be there to protect you anymore. Take the pension and enjoy yourself.”
“Son of a bitch! I knew you were retiring. Could feel it in my bones every time we spoke over the last few months. ”
“I know. I know,” was all he could bring himself to say. After a pause he continued, “Seriously – take your pension and enjoy yourself.”
“Enjoy myself! What would I do all day? Bethany is gone, you’re my closest friend and you’re telling me to retire, Amber barely talks to me, and my only hobby is sitting on my couch drinking cheap beer and watching sports. Beside I really can’t afford to retire; need to help Amber with college expenses like I promised. I don’t want her graduating a single crypto-coin in debt.”
“Well my friend. I have a job waiting for you that will fill the boredom and bring in enough crypto-coin – which along with your pension — will provide you with more money than ever before. Have you ever heard of the game Immersion Online?”
It was really turning into a shitty day. I’d had a heart attack, Amber (who it seems I had just reconciled with) was leaving for college in the morning, I was being forced to retire by my closest friend in the world, and worse of all Dave Barrett (or Thin Davie as we called the fat bastard) had performed mouth to mouth resuscitation on me. Maybe staying dead would have been better than the humiliation of that!
Chapter 2. Job Offer
The telescreen alarm bellowed for me to wake up. It had been a hell of a retirement party the night before. Maybe I should have stopped after seven beers, but they were so cold and delicious. The large quantity of alcohol served two purposes – helped me to loosen up and enjoy myself, but more importantly, it drowned out the memory of how ignominiously I had been forced to retire. I was still super pissed and still felt betrayed. I think Haggerty and the others thought it was just a matter of time before I exploded, blew up at them, the D.A., Haggerty and the entire system. But I held my shit together.
The news kicked on, and the announcer rambled on about it being Elon Musk’s one-hundredth birthday and his plans to complete work on a space elevator. He had settled a colony on Mars, perfected autonomous, self-driving cars, built the Hyperloop system that could get you from New York to Los Angeles in under two hours, so I had no doubt he could build a space elevator, whatever the heck that was.
“Off,” I cursed at the screen, wishing nothing more than to be alone with my thoughts. Usually I liked the background noise, but not today. Haggerty was correct, of course. With my bad heart and my bad knees and my constantly sore back, I really couldn’t handle the day to day rigors of being a detective. And even though there was free universal healthcare, the thought of replacing my knees and having nanites fix my bulging disks and stenosis seemed like something I just wasn’t ready for. He was correct when he said that I wouldn’t be happy shackled to a desk either. I might as well just put my service pistol to my head and pull the trigger at that point.
Haggerty was coming by early in the afternoon to tell me all about this job offer, security for a company called Immersion Online. I knew nothing about video games, having never played them growing up. Even though I grew up in a world with self-driving cars and bio implants that allowed you to call a friend or log onto the nexus (the offspring of the old internet) from your mind, I wasn’t really a tech guy. I had been an oddity when I was much younger: preferring to hike (in the forests that were left), swim (in the remaining clean lakes), and play outdoor sports. That was a long time ago, however. Nowadays, the longest hike I want to take is from the couch to the kitchen for another beer and a bag of chips.
I only had about a half hour before he showed, so I jumped in a sonic shower while the automated home assistant brewed me a cup of coffee. I poured a little liquor, actually quite a bit of liquor into the steaming mug, and took a deep sip. I was going to need alcohol to get through this meeting.
Mike Haggerty was always on time and today was no exception. “Afternoon Mike,” I said as I let him in, “Want some coffee?”
“I’m good. And I know better than to drink your coffee,” he said with a smirk as he followed me into my living room. I plopped downed in my easy chair and Mike took the couch. “All recovered from last night?”
“Thanks for coming in the afternoon. Gave me a chance to sleep the night off. And the coffee is helping with the hangover. So, tell me about the job,” I finally said. I didn’t really want to reminisce about the night before. There had been a ton of speeches about how great of a guy I was, very dedicated and all that crap. Thin Davie joked about how he still couldn’t get the garlic taste out of his mouth (guess I shouldn’t have had garlic chicken for lunch the afternoon of my heart attack). “So is it like a security gig at their corporate office? I hope it isn’t just being a glorified security guard scanning people into their building.”
“No! No!” he replied. “You know who Shannon Donally is, correct?
“The first trillionaire. The immersive video game designer. She created a game about ten years back called Epsilon 1 where players could captain spaceships and explore alien worlds. Didn’t she have some issues with an add-on for the game? I think it was a pleasure planet: gambling, alcohol, drug use, and every sexual whim with humans and aliens. Didn’t the S.J.D. drag her through hearing after hearing in the New Congress?”
“They did. And she crushed them in Congress. Spent billions of crypto-coin to advertise against them. Even hired dozens of investigators to dig up dirt on the same S.J.D. members who went after her. Two are in jail for corruption and three forced to resign or be impeached. You don’t mess with Shannon.”
“Anyway, you know that when I was younger that I went to school in Watertown. I think I told you this once before. I was there for only two years, but while there I made a really good friend, Shannon Donally. Even after I moved away, Shannon and I stayed in touch. We even dated briefly when we both returned briefly to Rockland after we graduated college.”
“Eventually, I joined the County Police force and Shannon…well Shannon is a genius. Literally a genius on par with Einstein… and as far as an inventor, she is a combination of Edison, Jobs and Musk all rolled into one. The things she’s working on now will transform all of our lives. She creates things people don’t even know they need or want.”
“Again,” I said, “I know who she is. What does this have to do with anything? Am I going to be a bodyguard for her or something?”
“She has a game called Immersion Online. Been out less than eighteen months. You don’t have any experience with virtual reality games, do you?”
“Not really. When the force offered all of the new training, I chose to take mine in person, as opposed to virtually. It was a hassle having to travel two hundred miles for the real thing, but I think well worth it.”
Haggerty went on. “It’s the top rated immersive game, with about a billion subscribers on Earth, the space stations, and the moon colony.” At any given time nearly three hundred million people are logged into the game. It also has cutting edge A.I. and the most advanced immersion system on the market. As you can imagine with that many players in the game at one time conflicts can arise.”
“Isn’t that what all those games are about? Conflict? Killing trolls, fighting bandits and rescuing princesses?”
“You’re right. Much of the game is about conflict. However, that is not the conflict I am speaking about. Most of the players want an escape. They want to be a powerful wizard or a noble knight. Some play for the adrenaline rush; while some crave fame and glory. As a matter of fact, some of the player leagues livestream their dungeon dives. They are some of the highest rated and most profitable shows on the TerraLunar-vid. Meanwhile, other players find another life in the game. They start businesses where they can convert in-game currency for real world crypto-coin; they run guilds and captain seafaring vessels. Some even start families. Paraplegics can walk in the grass and blind people can see again. People can be anyone they want to be in a safe environment where no real or permanent harm can happen t
o them. However, like any game, there are rules. Or at very least principles that need to be followed and that is where you come in.”
“What do you mean?” I questioned as I gulped down the last dredges of the coffee. The liquor was helping with the hangover that was trying to creep in.
“There are certain things that Shannon prohibits in the game. She is more concerned about the ninety-seven percent who follow the game rules than the three percent who don’t. Some want to push moral boundaries while others attempt to find loopholes and ways to cheat the game.”
“What are some of these rules – principles – she has in place?” I asked, starting to get an idea where this was heading.
“Well there are obvious rules, such as prohibitions from accessing the game’s mainframe and such. People have tried to hack it to max out their characters, or create an immortal weapon, to run a game bot that farms a mine day and night, or to drop a million gold coins into their online account. We have the best computer techs in the world to take care of that aspect of the game.”
“Okay,” I said.
“The problem comes inside the game. First off, Shannon sees her in game NPCs as real beings?”
“NPCs?” I queried.
“Non-player characters, referred to as Realmborn within the game. While the game has nearly a billion registered players, there are just as many if not more computer-generated characters who don’t know that they aren’t real. Or at least, not real in the way we are real. They have their own personalities and desires. Events around them, such as the death of a loved one or a war that comes to their village, shapes and molds their personalities. Like our world, some are kind while others are cruel. The Realmborn also give quests to characters, some very mundane, while others are epic or one of a kind. The death of one can end a storyline or make it impossible to complete. Some players kill Realmborn just for the fun of it while others do it to prevent other characters and leagues from completing a quest that provides them with powerful talismans or placement on the leaderboards. The coders can fix these glitches and new storylines can be written but that takes time. The A.I. can even adapt and fix broken storylines but there can be far reaching consequences with that too, such as logic errors. Or the A.I. will create a storyline that not even the programmers know about until it has begun. And trust me, they don’t like losing control over their creations. They see themselves as the gods of The Great Realm. The best thing we found is to send our own staff inside the game to protect its integrity.”