by Matt Ryan
Avarice Online
The Seven Realms Series
Matt Ryan
Copyright © 2017 by Matt Ryan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Book Cover: Jeff Brown
Typography: Regina Wamba
Editing: Victoria Schmitz
Dedication
Writing a book is never a solitary act. While the writing might be done by a single person at a time, the memories and stories are all developed long before I put a single word to paper. Many of those memories are thanks to my wonderful parents who let me play video games way to late and bought way too many.
To my number one fans:
My mom and dad.
Contents
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
Author Notes:
Chapter One
Late in the night, I hid in the corner of my shitty little bedroom, making sure the light from the screen didn’t reach past the doorway. If they knew I had a phone, they’d take it from me. Staring at the dimmed, cracked screen, I waited for the video to buffer. I waited to hear about the game that would change my life, Avarice Online.
The video came to life. A male reporter sat on a red cloth chair, in front of a background shot of San Francisco that screamed green screen.
“So, what is this new game?” the reporter, Jesse Brown, asked.
“Avarice Online is going to revolutionize the world of gaming, and maybe the world itself,” said Tilly Rains, a rep from V Corp.—the maker of the game.
“Bold statement. Do you think it’ll deliver as promised?”
Tilly’s plastic-looking smile spread across her face as she gave a nod. “Yes.” She fidgeted in her chair and made eye contact with the camera, without moving her head, then looked away.
Jesse raised his eyebrows at the confirmation. Clearing his throat, he referenced his notes before continuing. “There hasn’t been so much as a single screen-shot of this game. What’s with the secrecy?”
I blew out a silent breath in frustration. Same question, different day. Why wouldn’t they ask something we didn’t know? Lather, rinse, repeat. What a joke.
Tilly looked more comfortable answering this soft toss. “It’s vital for the gamer’s experience that they go into the game with no preconceived notions.” She’d probably practiced that line many times in the mirror.
“I suppose that includes locking down your gaming headquarters then? Because rumor has it, they can’t leave. Is that true?” Jesse leaned forward, crossing his hands over his lap, as he waited for an answer to a real question. The papers in his hand were folded against the chair, and I imagined the question wasn’t on the docket, or sent to V Corp. days in advance.
My eyes widened almost as big as Tilly’s. That was potentially the toughest question any reporter had asked during these so-called interviews. V Corp. owned too much and were too influential to mess with; most reporters stuck to the script and pretended there wasn’t one. Apparently, not Jesse Brown.
Tilly quickly collected herself, and met his stare with a tight-lipped smile that looked more like a grimace. “Everyone at V Corp. has free will, Mr. Brown. They can do as they please. Fortunately, our employees are devoted, and ultimately made the decision to dedicate a few months of their time to make sure we give an experience unlike anything the world has seen.” She glanced right into the camera again and then past it, as if to someone off screen.
“What about the one family that didn’t want to go? The one petitioning you to let them in to see their son?” Jesse asked and tilted his head, maybe to position his ear to better hear her response.
She blinked, and glanced beyond the camera again.
Jesse did the same, and slowly nodded. Smoothing the papers in his hand, he cleared his throat. “Is it a fantasy game?”
“It’s not a game of fantasy, if that’s what you mean. It’s as real as this.” She gestured around the room. “I guess you’ll find out tomorrow, as will the rest of the world.”
“What is your favorite part of the game?” Jesse asked and rolled his eyes. Looking completely put out, he shook his head and thrust the papers at Tilly. Then the video ended.
What the hell? That was it? I checked the main video site and saw it was already gone. Not that it mattered. The video was moving around the net like spilled milk. I scanned the forums and didn’t see anyone with a compelling explanation. The one with the most hits was from TrainerGym2047, and his guess was that it was all part of the hype train.
A data warning popped up on my screen and I rushed to view the shipping tracker for my copy of Avarice Online. I tapped the spinning package icon on the screen, only to see that my future was sitting in a distribution center in Phoenix. Soon, it’d be on the road again. I resisted the urge to stare at the status until it changed. That package represented everything to me.
I played games—loved games—but it was also my job. I worked for the most hated type of player in the world. The cheater.
If they had money to pay me, I’d farm gold for them, or level their character. If they had revenge they wanted played out, I would get on one of my mains and camp the asshole for as long as they paid me. I was good at what I did, spoke English, and lived in America—so the client wouldn’t get IP tagged. Gamers could trust me, and because of that, I’d built up a good rep over the past year.
It paid like shit, though.
It was amazing how little people wanted to pay for advancing their gaming experience. Way less than any minimum wage job, but that was all going to change with Avarice Online. The hype-train was traveling so fast and hard, I knew every one of my customers would be willing to pay me top dollar to give them an early advantage in the game; especially at the start. And I’d be right there, doing the dirty work, all while charging a high dollar amount for the access.
I tapped on the screen again, trying to update the status by way of digital finger-magic, but it just kept swirling on the screen. That six-sided cardboard box with an estimated arrival of 3pm was going to cost me some precious early game time, but that was a product of living where I did; the Slabs.
The Slabs were a lost relic of a once great track home development, from when America was still number one in the world. Now it was just a few square miles of partially built houses and concrete slabs, thus the name. It was the shittiest of shit-holes, filled with tweakers, crank-bangers and needle-heads. People came here to hide or give up. I rarely left the house for this reason. I preferred the digital world. For me, the line between the two often blur
red. When I spoke with people, I imagined stats floating above them. Each encounter might be a new quest or a path for advancement.
Just then, a male grunting sound came through the thin walls of the trailer, followed by a whimper of a woman’s voice that was anything but alluring, especially if you knew the mouth it came from. The sounds made me imagine my own stat floating above me:
+10 Nausea
Terrific. It must be sex Sunday.
The day my foster dad, Frank, would give it to my foster mom, Wendy. The trailer floors squeaked and the whole structure shook as the two masses of human flesh met, giving me a slight back and forth motion as I lay on the thin mattress on the floor. The action made it nearly impossible for me to not feel as if I were part of it, somehow.
How they had sex was a confounding mystery. Frank was a fat slob, and Wendy was nothing more than a glutinous blob. The mental image created was almost enough to make me celibate.
But seriously, she was so morbidly obese, I half-believed she’d fused to her bed. In fact, I’d never seen her leave her room in my two years at the residence. I might have felt bad for her, if not for the fact that she was mean. The occasional times I’d had to bring her food, she always made fun of my size, looks, and intelligence. And then she’d laugh at her jokes, causing the rolls on her body to jiggle, making her look like a bowl of slapped Jell-O.
There were some hard-and-fast rules I’d learned about foster homes, and I tried not to break any of them. Don’t eat anything. Don’t speak unless spoken too. Don’t look them in the eye. Don’t use electricity, heat, or oxygen if I could help it. And, be invisible.
But the worst was when they had a real kid; you now, their own flesh and blood. God’s gifts to the world. They were always allowed to sit at the table, or watch TV from the couch. Trevor was the name of my current foster family’s real son, and he reached new lows on the daily.
I pressed my earbuds in to drown out the remaining moments of colliding flesh, turned up my phone’s volume, and took a deep breath as the music played. At least the horror show in the next room never lasted more than three minutes.
Chapter Two
Given my streak of bad luck, it shouldn’t have surprised me that the day Avarice Online was supposed to arrive happened to coincide with my monthly check-in for school. I always did the work quickly, then turned in all the necessary paperwork with forged signatures. Today, the teacher barely looked up from her screen before she shooed me away.
I ran back to the trailer house and scanned the front porch for the package. Thank God, it hadn’t come yet . . . or had it come early and Frank had grabbed it first? Maybe it was sitting on my bed, waiting for me?
I flung open the rickety trailer door and ran back to my tiny room.
“No running in the house!” Wendy bellowed from her room.
My heart dropped as I peered at the vacant space that once held everything I owned.
The rolled-up bed on the floor—gone. The TV I’d gotten out of the wastelands—gone. I walked over to the closet and checked for my clothes—gone. Even the free school screen—gone. I turn to get Frank and see if we’d been robbed, only to find him standing in my doorway. The smell of Slab City moonshine followed him around like a dense cloud.
He brushed crumbs from his stained white T-shirt, and gave me a quizzical expression. A level fifty-two gluttonous blob with a surprisingly quick punch attack and a chaotic evil spec. He had high hit points, but low intellect. A mighty foe who I’d yet to beat.
“What’s with all the noise, boy?” Frank asked. “You disturbed Wendy.”
“My stuff . . . it’s gone?” I said pointing around my room.
“Your stuff?”
“Yeah, my bed, the TV I’d been working on.” A scary thought hit me and I rushed to the floor vent and pulled the cover off. The money I’d stashed inside of it was gone as well. This can’t be happening.
-$67
“You took it, didn’t you?” I asked.
“You were my property and my monthly gov check, up until the moment you turned eighteen. Now that you’re officially an adult, I took back everything I let you borrow, and then sold it. It’s my right, as everything under this roof is mine.”
“My birthday?” I hadn’t given it much thought, just another day. I usually didn’t even tell anyone about it because Frank and the other foster families seemed to think of it as a day of annoyance. I hadn’t celebrated it in almost ten years, but I did take it as an omen that Avarice Online and my eighteenth birthday landed on the same day. “Come on, Frank, you can’t just take my stuff. I earned that money. I bought that stuff.”
“Yeah, and I can’t believe you were holding out on us. Speaking of which, hand over that phone you have.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
“Boy, give it here!”
“Oh, come on, this is mine. I’ve paid for it the entire time.”
“Everything under this roof, remember?” He pointed at the ceiling and nudged his face forward with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. “Now give it to me, or I will take it from you.”
I wanted to punch the fat, trailer-trash man in the face, but he out-leveled me by a lot, and was bigger and meaner. I pulled the phone out of my pocket, making sure not to crinkle the $14 worth of paper money in there. He extended his sausage fingers and I dropped the pre-pay into his hand.
It didn’t matter. I’d make it back, and then some. All I needed was Avarice Online.
“Good,” Frank said. “Now get out.”
“What? I’ve got nowhere to go.” Not that I wanted to spend one more second in this place.
“Can you pay me rent?” Frank asked.
A trick question. No answer would keep me in my room. “No. But I just need a day to find a place, maybe two—”
“This shouldn’t be a surprise, Josh. I thought you knew this was coming.”
“I’ve been good to you guys. I’ve never bothered you, never asked for anything, ate very little. I even helped you get Wi-Fi in this place.”
Frank took a long breath and rubbed his scrubby face as if contemplating my worth. “Josh, you’ve been a terrible little shit that has stained this home for long enough. The next kid is coming in tomorrow. Your turn is over.”
“You can’t just throw me in the street. There’s . . .” I was trying to pull from something that might stick. “There’s a state mandate about transitioning me out. I’ll tell them about what you’re doing and I bet they’ll pull your foster license.”
Frank laughed at me. “You think the state gives a crap about you? You’re eighteen now. You will just go outside and become another sad teen statistic, right up there with pregnancies and suicide.”
He was right, I was going to be a homeless teenager.
The last thing I wanted to do was to start crying in front of this man, so I slammed my eyes shut and tried to suppress the rage building within. I didn’t just want to hurt Frank, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to take my max-level toon, Magoton, and send an arcane bolt straight through him. Then I’d loot everything he’d stolen from me.
That would be the fun thing to do. The fair thing.
The real world wasn’t fair though. I’d never asked much of it, even though the world had taken my parents from me so long ago, I could barely remember their faces. It had shoved me from foster home to foster home, because there wasn’t a place for orphans.
Not like it mattered though, because I played games, and in those games, I’d found a place to fit in—where people looked up to me. I was needed in those worlds, not this one.
In the end, the stuff in my room didn’t matter to me, and I only had one question for Frank. “Where’s the package?”
His thick brows lowered, seeming confused, but a light switch would baffle him. “What package?”
Had it not arrived yet? Hope flooded my veins and I ran to the door just as the delivery truck pulled away.
Frank’s real son, Trevor, stood on the dirt pathway holding my cardb
oard box. Trevor was a level eighteen foster brother, with a mastery in insults and general assholery. He was evil neutral with high marks in charisma, and a darling of the Slab City teens. But that was like being the hottest commodity at the local dollar store—still shit.
I imagined a quest popping out in front of me:
Quest: Obtain package from Trevor.
“That’s mine,” I said walking up to him.
Trevor smiled and held the package over his head. He was a good six inches taller than me, and liked to find ways to make sure I knew. I folded my arms in defiance of his game. Trevor looked at the package, and something caught his eye. When he brought it closer to his face, I read the words on the side of the box as well.
Avarice Online brought to you by V Corp. Made in the USA.
“You little bastard. This is Avarice Online. How the hell did you afford this?” Trevor asked.
I grabbed for the box, but he turned his shoulder on me and pushed me away. “Dude, just give it to me.”
“He’s out, Trevor. You don’t have to give him shit,” Frank yelled from the doorway.
“He’s already eighteen?” Trevor snickered. “Damn, dude, sucks to be you.”
“Why? I get to leave. You’re the one who has to stay in this hovel. Just hand it over, and I’ll be out of your hair forever.”
“No. You heard the old man. Just crawl back to whatever hole you came from.”