The First Player (AlterGame Book #1) LitRPG Series

by Andrew Novak

  "Whatever you say, boss!"

  "Well, that's enough instruction. The rest I'll tell you on the way, if necessary," Jack concluded. "Get some rest before the trip. Take knives with you, at least two. And no shorter than this."

  He held his hands up about twelve inches apart.

  "Two?" Vince asked, surprised.

  "Or more. You can't have too many knives."

  Carl didn't say a word. Either he was unsurprised, or he was the silent type.

  Peter led Jack to the sleeping quarters and pointed out his cot. Before leaving, he asked,

  "What's going on with the Gravediggers?"

  "Wow, everyone already knows about it..." Jack muttered.

  "Not everyone. Just those, who peek at their forum in the Shell. They've declared war on you," Peter grinned. "And equipment merchants like me know somewhat. The Gravediggers are going around to all the shops, looking for the drops that came from them and asking everyone about the guy who sold them. Rest, Jack, that'll all come later – Alterra, Gravediggers, in-game fights. You have a real trip in store for you tomorrow. That's what really matters, so do it, my boy!"

  Jack was surprised. Shifty Peter was dead serious. Not a smile, nor one of his usual jokes.

  It was still dark when they left. They settled in on the wooden benches in the rear cargo area of a battery truck. Peter whispered something in parting to Vince, and then nodded to the driver. The Clusters were still asleep and the clatter of the loose suspension seemed deafening. A couple of times, the noise woke people in the trailers next to the road, who then swung their doors open and ran cursing after the truck. When the group finally reached the edges of the slums, Jack sighed with relief.

  Everyone was afraid of the Blighted Wasteland, but for him, it was much more peaceful than here among people. Yes, Peter was right. It was easy to wind up dead here. There were a thousand ways to die, but in its own way, the Wasteland was more honest.

  Before the sun rose, it was cool and walking was easy. However, Jack intentionally guided the group slow so that his companions, who weren't familiar with the terrain, could gradually adjust. Along the way, he found a few decently-sized sticks and showed them how to fasten their knives to them, to make something like a spear. Vince liked it. He preferred polearms in Alterra.

  Worn brick and stone fragments crunched under their feet. Once, people lived everywhere around here, but this was all that was left of their homes. The Gendemic, and what followed, obliterated the old life. The further from the ocean, the drier the land became underfoot and the stronger the sun beat down. The most dangerous time was in the morning, before the wild dogs and other local predators hadn't yet retreated to their dens. When the sun really began to burn and Jack reckoned that the animals had gone into hiding for the day, he picked up the pace.

  In fact, Vince also thought they needed to hurry. Shifty Peter had hinted that, if they delayed, there could be some trouble. What his kinsman had meant by that, Vince didn't know. Carl kept quiet, so it was unclear how he felt about the speed.

  All told, his companions managed well with the quick pace, except they were drinking through the water too quickly. Jack had anticipated this, so when they were preparing to leave, he loaded Carl up with a full jug of water, not including the flasks.

  Sometimes an animal would make an appearance but yield the road to the people. Jack, as usual, would be the one to stay cautious. Especially later in the trip. He had happened to get a bit farther than the X that Peter had placed on his map. Wasteland creatures that lived close to New Atrium knew to fear man. Particularly a trio, with two of the men as large as Carl and Jack. But that was here, at the beginning of their trek. Farther out, things would get more interesting.

  At the beginning, everything was so peaceful and quiet that Jack relaxed a bit. Little by little, his thoughts turned to the dark service quest that had been interrupted by this trip. He thought about the goblins' strange behavior, the black sword, the lost Corrupted Book... and a little more about the porcelain girl, Eloise.

  Of course, this delay wouldn't bring Jack closer to his goal, but at the end of the day, it was two hundred panbucks... That was a whole eight hundred in-game gold coins! A good contribution towards his future ship. Jack was daydreaming... and belatedly realized that Vince had started to lag behind. Jack didn't bother saying anything. He just slowed the pace and began looking for a place to stop.

  They came across a single wall with broken edges, about six feet high and twenty feet long. Jack stopped here.

  "Rest for a bit in the shade. We have another two or three hours of walking at this pace. But I can see that we can't keep this speed up right now."

  Vince sat down straight away. Or, rather, fell down. He was dripping with sweat and had turned so red that it looked like you could light a cigarette off his cheeks. He'd taken off his cape long ago and was wearing just a dirty t-shirt that clung to his body.

  "I wonder," he said to Jack once he'd caught his breath, "how you can walk in that cloak. It's so heavy and hot!"

  "It’s a magic cloak that gives a bonus to defense," Jack smiled. "A dog wouldn’t be able to bite through it."

  "Yeah, and what kind of dog would be out in this heat? A fried one, perhaps? "

  "You'll see tonight. And, well, it'll be good if we end up only with dogs. The place I'm taking you is... very nasty."

  He strolled around the wall but didn't see anything from the old world. This had probably been a house, where people had lived, planted flowers in a garden surrounded by a fence, parked their car in the garage... and all that was left was part of a wall. Now, there was nothing interesting here for a Walker, and Jack sat down next to his ward. He thought again about his unfinished quest and, apparently, even nodded off. Those who wandered the Blighted Wasteland got used to sleeping lightly.

  And then something happened. Jack sprung up and looked around.

  "What's with you?" asked Vince.

  Carl didn't say anything, just reached for the improvised spear leaning against the wall.

  Jack didn't answer. He just looked around, listening. Something was happening – something important. And Jack needed to determine the source of the disturbance before it was too late to run or hide. That was how Walkers functioned, how they survived. First, you felt the change around you, and only then did you see or hear it.

  There it was! There was a new sound, aside from the ever-present buzzing of flies. A low, even rumble was approaching from the direction the travelers had come from. A black spot appeared above the flat steppe. It was slowly growing.

  "Airship," Carl said.

  "Shit," Jack confirmed.

  Traveling in the Wasteland wasn't forbidden. But if the defenders saw you, they might shoot you just for fun. Especially now, as they were surely heading to the crash site. Right now, they would undoubtedly shoot anyone they saw. And there was nowhere to hide. The wall would hardly conceal them, since it looked like the airship would fly almost directly over it. Vince jumped up, rushed to one side, then to the other... It was the same as far as the eye could see: the flat steppe, loose gravel, and tufts of gray grass.

  "Vince, over here!" Jack barked.

  He caught Vince by the collar, pulled him closer and raised his fist threateningly.

  "Calm down or I'm gonna knock the crap out of you!" Tt was time to yell. The only way to suppress the panic was to frighten Vince more than the defenders. "Carl, grab the stuff, throw it under the wall! Then sit there next to it! Now! Vince, with him! Press close! Carl, pull your legs in! Closer, closer!"

  Jack kicked Vince in the side, making him huddle closer Carl. He quickly threw off his cloak, flicking it up and smoothing it out, then flopped down on the ground under the shadow of the wall, next to Vince. The cloak, slowly sinking, covered them. It was instantly sweltering hot under the heavy material.

  "Now, do not move," Jack, said in a whisper, for some reason.

  He himself didn't understand why he lowered his voice. It just happened, someh
ow. The trio sat motionless, trying to breathe less often. Maybe it was because Jack's clothes stunk of all the scents that could be picked up in the Blighted Wasteland.

  The rumble of the airship was growing closer. Jack pictured the pilot looking through the windshield. Or maybe there was no glass? Maybe there were remote cameras on the outside that transmitted an image to the cabin? Who knew how defender airships worked? Whatever there was, the pilot could see the plain. The wall attracted attention because there was nothing else here to look at. Under the wall was a shadow. No, the pilot wouldn't peer into the shadow. He was looking ahead...

  The roar of the engine surrounded them. Jack's cloak shifted a little and the noise began to fade. Jack carefully pulled back the canvas from his head and looked out.

  "What's out there?" Carl asked.

  "Nothing."

  "Can we come out?" Vince asked anxiously.

  "Don't know," Jack confessed honestly. "They're not far."

  The noise hadn't vanished completely, although the airship should have already disappeared. Jack peeked out from behind the wall. The dot in the sky was slowly shifting but not receding.

  "They're circling, searching for something," Jack realized.

  "The same thing we are," Vince had crawled out from under the cloak anyway.

  "Wait," Jack ordered. "That airship will be coming back, and we are still stuck here."

  The sound changed. A staccato cracking joined the even rumble. Then, there was a crash and a mushroom cloud of dust ballooned over the plain. Vince jumped up to see better.

  "They found it," he murmured. "They confirmed that the crew wasn't in communication, that there was no traffic around the fallen ship, and now they're shooting at it."

  "Why?" Jack asked, surprised.

  "Precisely so that we wouldn't be able to get anything. There's something there that they don't want us getting our hands on. The crew's weapons, the large on-board emitters, maybe something else. I don't know. Routine defender work, if they don't want to take any chances and go down to check."

  "It's weird that they didn't come yesterday when the crew reported the crash."

  "Not so weird. The crew was alive. I don't know what mission sent them out into the Wasteland, but you can assume they started to execute it. If it was on the ground, then why send a second airship? Moreover, why in a thunderstorm? It's dangerous. Lightning could strike the second vehicle."

  "That's true," Jack acknowledged. "Those kinds of storms do happen out here!"

  "And magnetic anomalies occur during storms. That's what they think in New Atrium, Peter said. Well, now I think he ordered us to hurry precisely because he knew that a second airship would come to destroy the fallen ship. If the crew had been alive and done the job they came to do, then the defenders would have picked them up. And if they weren't, then they were to destroy the fallen vehicle."

  "Are we scrapping the trip?"

  "No," Vince shook his head. "We still have to make sure."

  "Then hide. I think they've finished shooting. Climb under the canvas, Vince."

  "Yup, it's a good cloak. When you were talking it up, you forgot about the bonus to concealment. I was wracking my brains trying to figure out why you always wear that dirty rag."

  "Now you know. It's the same color as the Wasteland."

  They got lucky. The airship circled for some time over the destroyed ship, turned from its original direction, and flew back along a different course.

  When the black dot faded from view and the rumble ceased, Jack led the group on. A thin wisp of gray smoke rose over the horizon above the area where they were heading and disappeared, mingling with the gray sky of the Wasteland. The sky in that direction was even darker than the sky around it.

  When they came closer to the crash site, Jack realized what was going on. Even a couple kilometers away, they started to find round spots of dried muck. The pervasive dust clung to the sticky masses and had solidified into a cracked crust. This wasn't a result of the rain. The sludge here was seeping up from the ground. It was unclear what the substance was, but it wasn't water. Even the pathetic vegetation that could usually be found in the Wasteland had disappeared. There was only dust and the dried circles of grime.

  Later they found areas where the muck hadn't dried up. Bubbles slowly swelled on the surface and burst, emitting an unbearable stench, then began growing again from the gas rising from the depths. It was because of these fumes that the sky seemed darker from afar. In the distance, a resounding boom pealed. A dark, billowing column bloomed over the plain, spitting heavy flakes, and fell.

  "Oh," Vince exhaled. "What was that?!"

  Jack dug into his memory and fished out what people had told him about these parts.

  "Geysers. Oh, there, you see the steam coming out? Some are hot, so stay away from the dried spots. If you fall in, you could boil in just a few seconds. Now I'm thinking, maybe a geyser brought the airship down? You saw how high they get, and the ship was supposed to have come down here. We're almost there."

  "Peter said it was lightning," Carl put in.

  Jack didn't answer. Maybe it was lightning; maybe it was a geyser – what was the difference? When the Wasteland killed, the only thing that mattered was the final result.

  The farther they walked, the more often they encountered the soft, round patches in the hard earth. In some places, they launched little fountains of mud. The epicenter of underground activity was farther off. This was only the fringe of the danger zone. A couple of times, the giant geysers showed themselves in all their glory, but they were far off. Jack kept away from the breathing, humid heat of the holes – just in case.

  Suddenly, from one of the spouts, a long, thick vine fell out, covered in mud, and flopped onto the dust, only two or three feet from his boot. He froze, signaling his companions to stop. The vine also did not move. No, it wasn't just some splash from the geyser. Inside, under the mud, there was something. And it seemed to react to their footsteps, sensing vibrations in the earth. What kind of creature could live in that mud? Jack stood with his arm raised and the other two also stood in place, all looking at the tentacle-like thing lying in a wet mess. It didn't move for a full minute, then sluggishly pulled itself back into the chuffing, bubbling mass.

  Jack backed away very carefully and walked around this pool, giving this one a much wider berth than the rest.

  When they reached the crash site, the smoke coming from the wreckage was still going. Pieces of metal, plastic and even a few dead hounds were lying in the hollow, the ground flecked with black scorch marks.

  Carl eyed the scene with his usual indifferent expression. Vince shifted a melted piece of wreckage with his boot, spat, and said,

  "The defenders made our job easier. I'll examine it for a couple of hours. But it seems to be pointless."

  "Only dogs," Carl said quietly.

  "So what? Vince turned toward the big man.

  "The people. Not here. Did they leave?"

  Jack thought that maybe Carl wasn't so simple. At any rate, he noticed the important things.

  "Do your thing," he ordered, "and I'll look around."

  He climbed out of the basin so he could see the surrounding area and walked in circles, searching for tracks. They were easy to detect since the accident had occurred during rain. The shoe soles of the defenders had left tracks in the wet soil. Then, the following morning, the sun began to bake, as was usual in the Wasteland, and the prints dried rock hard. Four sets of feet. Four people, the airship crew, left to the north. What did they need there?

  Jack covered his eyes with his hand and gazed in that direction. In the haze, the outline of a large building was just barely discernable. Sometimes the gray clouds from the geysers obscured the area and the buildings became completely impossible to see. Sometimes they dispersed and the outlines stood out again. He thought that, even when they were distinctly visible, the tops would still be practically indistinguishable, because the fumes from the geyser hung above the area
like a dense, gray umbrella. Which meant the defenders from New Atrium could, essentially, fly for a while here in their airships and not even notice these buildings.

  He climbed a small hillock and stared out again in that direction. From here, Jack could see a fence, a concrete wall, and a flat roof. Between the wreck site and the curious building, he noticed some dark spots. The dust, forever hanging in the air in the Blighted Wasteland, obstructed visibility. These spots could have been dead defenders, or simply mud from a drying puddle. And it could be a scorch created when the airborne ship fired its emitters.

  He returned to the group and told them what he had discovered. Vince promptly tossed aside the piece of twisted metal he had been twirling in his hands, and announced that they needed to go take a closer look. Jack agreed, but reminded him:

  "There's not much time. We have to prepare for nightfall and there's no more than an hour before dark. It is essential to stay in one place at night, no traveling. Wasteland law. Let's go! Keep your sticks close."

  The first dark spot turned out to be a scorch mark from an on-board emitter, but farther on... Peering into the dust veil, Jack could make out movement. Something living was rolling around in the dust. A few living things, even. Jack ran. Carl, keeping pace, puffed and clomped behind him.

  The air in the area of the encounter was full of dust. Hazy shadows rolled over the ground, each movement sent up a new cloud of dust and from 30 feet out, it was impossible to tell what was happening there.

  Jack stumbled and looked reflexively at what tripped him up. It was a human hand gripping an emitter. It was severed below the elbow, with shreds that were once a sleeve. Not black, like the defenders' uniforms. More like orange or beige, as far as Jack could tell.

  From the black cloud leaped a massive, wild, sand-colored hound. Pink spittle, a mixture of saliva and blood, flew from its grinning chops. Jack stepped sharply to the side, passing by the creature and stabbed it in the side with a makeshift spear. Just like the wolf outside of Narim in the game.