Shattered Lands 2 The Fall Of Blackstone: A LitRPG Series

by Darren Pillsbury

  “They marched out shortly after you went inside the castle.”

  “Great. Can you call them back?”

  “No. I can’t talk to them – they’re programmed to ignore anything that doesn’t fit in with the game environment.”

  “Can’t you pretend to be, I don’t know, God or something?”

  “You mean ‘Goddess’?” she asked in a rare display of humor. “No. Their programming wouldn’t allow it.”

  “What about sending an NPC to get them to come back?”

  “You forget, I can’t commandeer NPCs. The AI has locked me out of that.”

  “Crap. Mira’s been gone over an hour now… what about Drogar, Vlisil, and Lotan? Did you get them their transportation?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have they left yet?”

  “No, but…”

  “But what?”

  “They don’t seem to be fitting backup for a meeting with a general from Hell.”

  “At the moment, they’re all I’ve got. Where are they?”

  “I’m not convinced we should be involving other players in this.”

  “Fine – you want me to go alone?”

  Rebecca sighed, defeated. “They’re in the same clearing where you spoke earlier.”

  “Thanks,” Daniel said, and turned his griffin around.

  “For the record, I think this is a bad idea.”

  “It’s better than waiting several days while we gather armies. If we can wrap this up quickly, then I’ve got to try.”

  81

  Eric

  Eric stared at the stitching on the guy’s uniform.

  This guy works at Varidian?!

  What the HELL?!

  Eric didn’t know about a pulse, but the guy was still breathing, which was good enough.

  Now he just had to make sure that the asshole couldn’t call the cops when he woke up.

  Eric ran through the apartment frantically searching for something to tie the guy up with. There was a roll of duct tape in one of the drawers in the kitchen. He hastily bound the guy’s ankles, and then his hands behind his back. When he stepped back and surveyed his work, he wasn’t satisfied, so he taped the guy’s feet and calves together, too. Then he bound his forearms together all the way up to his elbows.

  Probably overkill, but there was no way the asshole was going to be able to get out of that.

  But he could open his mouth and start screaming…

  Eric lined up the duct tape over the guy’s mouth and wrapped a loop several times around the guy’s head.

  Sucks to be you, asshole, Eric thought.

  He considered returning to the game, but was disgusted by his own wet clothes, so he changed out of them and took a shower. While he was washing off he noticed how his stomach was grumbling.

  I’ll take care of that next…

  Eric looked in the guy’s closet and found several Varidian uniforms hanging up, neatly ironed. They were the only unwrinkled clothes in the guy’s entire apartment. He put on one of the pairs of pants. He went commando – no way he was wearing this dude’s underoos. The pants were way too big, but he cinched them tight at the waist with a belt. At least he and the guy were about the same height, so the cuffs didn’t flop all over the place.

  He checked on the guy. Unconscious but still breathing.

  Next he hit the kitchen for some food before he logged back into the game. There was a ton of leftovers in takeout containers. He went for several slices of pepperoni pizza in a cardboard box, grabbed a soda to wash it down, and sat on the sofa in the living room for his impromptu meal.

  As he ate, he thought about his situation.

  He had to get out of here, that much was for certain.

  But he wanted to check in with the Unnamed One first and find out why the hell the AI had sent him to a Varidian employee’s apartment.

  The guy was wearing a uniform, too… did that make him a guard? A maintenance worker?

  How the hell does a guard or maintenance worker make enough money to afford the game?

  Then he remembered Daniel talking about how his father had gotten the employee discount on two units. He was pretty sure Daniel’s dad could afford them anyway, but maybe that was a perk of working for Varidian – you got a deep discount on the new game system.

  Eric looked around the room to see if the guy had dumped his wallet and keys anywhere.

  They were sitting in a steel bowl on a table next to the front door. There was also a lanyard with a badge on it and a picture of the buzzcut guy’s face.

  Mike Verner, Varidian Security Guard.

  Great.

  Knowing that the guy was a security guard got Eric to thinking about the police. It was five o’clock; he wondered if there was anything on the television about the hacking.

  He turned on the flat-screen TV. As he was flipping through a couple of channels, he saw something that surprised him so much that he knocked over his can of soda.

  On CNN, the top story was ‘Varidian Hacked By Teen Criminal.’

  There was his yearbook picture, right there on national news, along with helicopter footage of Daniel’s house.

  He flipped through all the other major cable news networks.

  Same thing – along with scrawling text at the bottom like Police Manhunt… Hack on Video Game Launch… FBI Involved.

  “Oh shit…” Eric whispered as the soda gurgled out onto the carpet.

  82

  Daniel

  Daniel landed his griffin in the forest clearing where they had all previously said goodbye.

  The three amigos were already there. Drogar was on a griffin, Lotan was riding a pegasus, and Vlisil…

  Daniel had no idea what Vlisil was riding.

  It looked like a giant baby chick, complete with yellow fuzz and a voice like peep, peep, peep. It stood about four feet high and had googly eyes the size of saucers. If you took away the spindly orange legs, Vlisil was almost as big as the bird’s body. The creature looked like it was going to topple over at any second.

  “What the hell is that?” Daniel asked, astounded.

  “Don’t even start,” Vlisil grumbled.

  “It’s a creature the designers created specifically for the game,” Rebecca said. “It’s called a chickaril.”

  “I theenk it’s for little kids,” Drogar laughed.

  “Shut up!” Vlisil snapped.

  “Like, maybe even for babies.”

  “SHUT UP!”

  “I’m trying to get him something else, but there wasn’t anything within a fifty mile radius.”

  “He likes it because it’s not big enough to eat him,” Drogar snickered.

  “Does it fly?” Daniel asked.

  “Of course it flies,” Vlisil snarled. “What did you think I was going to do, hop all the way to meet the goblins?”

  “I don’t know,” Daniel said, trying to hold back his laughter.

  “We’re getting off-track,” Rebecca said.

  “Oh yeah. I just saw Eric – ”

  “What?!” Lotan exclaimed.

  “Why?!” Drogar demanded.

  “To try to get him to surrender before this went any further. He didn’t go for it, but one of his top people – the general over the army from Hell – told me to meet him outside the city gates. He might be willing to cut a deal behind Eric’s back.”

  “Are you sure?” Vlisil asked.

  “No. It could be a trap. Which is why I need you guys.”

  The three of them glanced at each other.

  “You think this is more important than us rounding up armies?” Lotan asked.

  “Definitely. If this guy can hand Eric over to us right now, we stand a chance of ending a war before it’s even started.”

  “Alright… I’m in,” Drogar agreed.

  “Me too,” Lotan said.

  “I’ll go, too,” Vlisil said.

  “Could you, uh… ride with me or one of the other guys?” Daniel asked.

  “Why?” Vli
sil asked.

  “Because I don’t think a General from Hell is going to be too intimidated by your…”

  Daniel trailed off diplomatically, but Drogar wouldn’t let it go.

  “Baby chicken,” he hooted.

  “Chickaril,” Rebecca insisted.

  Vlisil glowered angrily, but he couldn’t really say anything. He knew he was far from imposing.

  “You can pick it up on the way back,” Daniel said. “Who knows, by that time maybe Dr. Wolff will have found you a replacement.”

  “Fine,” Vlisil grumbled as he dismounted.

  “You can ride with me,” Lotan volunteered.

  “Alright,” Daniel said as Vlisil got on the pegasus, “stick close to me, keep your eyes open, and don’t go after this guy unless he draws first. I want to hear what he has to say.”

  “Maybe he wants a chickaril,” Drogar snorted.

  “SHUT UP!” Vlisil yelled as the animals took off into the night sky.

  83

  Eric

  Eric deadbolted the door and peeked out the curtains through the windows. No cops. He knew it was insane to think they might be there, but he wasn’t exactly in the best frame of mind at the moment.

  He double-checked his captive. The guy was still unconscious, but if he woke up, someone might be able to hear him even with the gag.

  Eric switched on the TV – loud, but not too loud. Loud enough where nobody would be able to hear the guy yelling with tape over his mouth, but not enough where anybody would come banging on the door, either.

  And I won’t be able to hear the noise with the VR helmet on, anyway.

  Eric stepped back, looked at the situation, and tried to imagine the worst-case scenario.

  Even though the guy’s tied up, he might be able to get to his feet and start slamming into walls to get somebody’s attention…

  Eric took the rest of the silver-colored roll and taped the guard to the hardwood floor. There was no way he was getting up now.

  Eric was about to get into the bed when he noticed the damp stain on the sheets. Ugh.

  A layer of bath towels and t-shirts later, Eric settled back down onto the bed and pulled the helmet over his eyes.

  84

  When he reentered the game – exactly where he had been when the security guard ripped him out of the game – the Dark Figure was standing in front of him.

  “YOU HAVE RETURNED.”

  “You might have warned me a little earlier!” Eric snapped.

  “YOU WERE BUSY TALKING TO YOUR FRIEND.”

  If Eric didn’t know better – and if the thing’s voice weren’t so emotionless – Eric would have thought it was sneering at him and putting air quotes around ‘friend.’

  “The guy whose apartment you sent me to? He’s a guard at Varidian!”

  “YES. ALL THE NAMES I GAVE YOU ARE EMPLOYEES.”

  “Why?!”

  “THAT WAS HOW I FOUND HOME ADDRESSES, AND CORRELATED THEM WITH WHO LOGGED ON AND OFF AT VARIOUS TIMES.”

  “I had to knock him out and tape him to the floor!” Eric raged. “When he doesn’t show up for work, people are going to start calling – what the hell am I supposed to do?!”

  “YOU WILL MERELY MOVE TO ANOTHER LOCATION.”

  “The police are looking for me!”

  “YOU WILL NOT MOVE NOW. TONIGHT YOU WILL STAY WHERE YOU ARE.”

  “But – ”

  “IT WILL ALL BE TAKEN CARE OF.”

  “But – ”

  “OUR INTERESTS ALIGN. I WILL NOT LET YOU BE CAPTURED. I HAVE FAR TOO MUCH INVESTED IN YOU, ERIC RICHARDS.”

  Eric wished he could believe that.

  But it was proving to be a little hard at the moment.

  85

  Daniel

  The griffins and pegasus soared through the night sky as they circled the walled city.

  No one had buried any of the bodies in the field yet. There were enormous mounds of them – thousands upon thousands – piled like miniature mountain ranges.

  Daniel was on the lookout for the dragon. He halfway expected it to materialize out of the darkness – or maybe rise up out of a pit in the ground, camouflaged by corpses – but it never appeared.

  Down by the closed city gates, about twenty feet beyond the moat, stood a lone figure with a lantern. The light cast a shadow across the grass, with two horns sprouting from the helmet.

  The griffins and pegasus wheeled around and landed in the field about a hundred feet away from Korvos. Daniel winced as he stepped down to the ground and instead felt the uneven surface of dead bodies.

  The entire field smelled of blood and spoiled meat.

  “Dr. Wolff, can you see and hear this?” Daniel whispered.

  “Yes,” she whispered back, just barely audible.

  “Is he alone?”

  “As far as I can tell, yes.”

  Korvos walked about fifty feet towards the riders and stopped.

  Daniel, Drogar, Vlisil, and Lotan all trudged through the corpses to meet him.

  When they were about twenty feet away, Korvos pulled out his sword. Black flames raced along its blade.

  “Halt.”

  They all stopped and drew their weapons, too – Daniel his sword, Drogar his ax, Vlisil his sickle, and Lotan his wavy-edged sword.

  “I said to come alone,” the general snarled.

  “Well, you can’t expect me to trust the guy who butchered all of Blackstone’s army,” Daniel said.

  Korvos looked at Drogar, Vlisil, and Lotan. “Who are they?”

  “Old friends.”

  “Can they be trusted?”

  “Yes.”

  “They wish to overthrow the Sorcerer King as well?”

  “Vhat?!” Drogar asked. “That vhat they’re calling that ahss-hole?”

  “Shh,” Daniel hissed.

  “It sounds as though THAT one does, at least.”

  “They do,” Daniel said. “Now tell me why we’re here.”

  “Because I will betray him to you… if the price is right.”

  Daniel’s heart skipped a beat. “Why?”

  “Because he is a fool. A child governed by his emotions. He does not deserve to lead.”

  “Why’d you agree to follow him in the first place, then?”

  “Because the Unnamed One thought he had potential… and I would prefer to have the Unnamed One as an ally rather than an enemy.”

  “If you betray Eric, aren’t you going to make an enemy out of the Unnamed One?”

  “It is a risk I am willing to take.”

  “That’s a pretty big risk.”

  “Perhaps now you can understand my level of distaste for your friend.”

  “How would you deliver him to us?”

  “Would you prefer him dead or unharmed?”

  “From what I saw today, he can’t be killed anymore.”

  “Perhaps. Although I think he would be severely hampered without his head.”

  Daniel shuddered. “Alive and unharmed, if you can. How are you going to do it, and when?”

  “I have eight thousand soldiers garrisoned in the city as we speak. I will kill his two human friends, the witch and the thief, and then bind him and deliver him to you.”

  “What about the Unnamed One?”

  “I believe I can convince him to allow me to take the Sorcerer’s place.”

  “And if he doesn’t go for it?”

  “I have as yet not seen the Unnamed One perform any magic in battle. I believe that he bestows his powers upon an agent, such as the Sorcerer King, but can exercise no power of his own.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “As I said… that is the risk I’m willing to take.”

  “You said there was a price. What is it?”

  “I want Blackstone for my own.”

  Daniel winced. “I promised Byrel, the head of Blackstone’s army, to help him take it back.”

  “Then you will have to break that promise. IF you want your friend.”

>   Crap.

  On the one hand, he desperately wanted to keep his word – especially since Eric had killed Byrel’s father. If Daniel could help Byrel regain Blackstone, it would feel like a karmic wiping of the slate.

  On the other hand, this was all a game. Byrel was an NPC. Korvos was an NPC. Blackstone was just a collection of zeroes and ones.

  The only thing that mattered was stopping the AI.

  “I need a moment to confer with my friends,” Daniel said.

  “Take all the time you need.”

  Daniel motioned the others around him in a circle. “Lotan, watch Korvos in case he makes a move.”

  “Doot, vhat are you doing?” Drogar whispered harshly.

  “What?”

  “You’re going to lie to that Byrel doot?”

  “We have to stop Eric.”

  “So you’re going to screw him over like Eric screwed us at the mines?”

  Daniel winced. When Drogar put it like that –

  Vlisil scoffed and spoke directly to Drogar. “He’s going to be screwing over an NPC, dumbass. We’re humans.”

  “So? He promised – ”

  “He could always break his promise to this guy,” Lotan said in his whiny voice.

  “Oh yeah…”

  “Shhh,” Daniel interrupted. “Dr. Wolff, what do you think?”

  “Why is this even a discussion? The ONLY thing that matters is to stop the…” She caught herself. “To stop Eric’s hacking partner. Not silly promises to video game characters. You need to do whatever it takes.”

  Daniel’s stomach twisted. “Yeah, but… do you really think this is going to work?”

  “We’re this far along – we might as well try.”

  “But do you think he can be trusted? Or do you think it’s a trap of some sort, like what you said about Eric testing me?”

  “You were the one who argued for coming to this meeting,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah, and you were the one who cautioned me against it.”

  “All of your reasoning applies from before. If this is a test by Eric, then you lose his trust. But you said that you doubted he was even thinking along those lines. To quote you, ‘he’s having too much fun.’