by Oliver Mayes
Occultist
Saga Online Book 1
Oliver Mayes
Foreword
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Contents
1. Character Building
2. Character Destroying
3. Playing the Hand You’re Dealt
4. All In
5. Falling for Aetherius
6. Things Can Always Get Worse
7. Dungeon Crawler
8. Things Can Only Get Better
9. Growing Pains
10. Victory Loves Preparation?
11. The Road Less Travelled By
12. No Rest for the Wicked
13. Goblins!
14. The High Road or the Low Road
15. The Lion’s Den
16. Purpose
17. Day Two
18. Cry Havoc
19. Two Birds, One Stone
20. To the Victor, the Spoils
21. A Freaky Time
22. Untapped Resources
23. Stop. Hammertime
24. Reaching Your Target Audience
25. Tinker Tailor Soldier Demons
26. Welcome to Hell
27. Bad Endings
28. The Immortal
29. Keeping up Appearances
30. Assault
31. Earning Your Name
32. Dragonslayer
33. Preparations
34. The Six Platforms of Hell
35. Bartholomew’s Revenge
36. The Final Battle
37. Picking up the Pieces
Epilogue
Afterword
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With deepest thanks (and sympathy) to the Portal Books Team, without whom this would not have been possible.
This book is dedicated to my English Teacher, Mr. Lowry, who predicted it would be written one day. I’m not sure if this is what you were expecting, but I hope you enjoy it all the same.
1
Character Building
Damien withdrew from the once cultist infested cave, only to find his fate was sealed. Through a gap in the trees he could see the sun lazily blending with the peaks of the far distant mountains. If he failed to warn Concoret before darkness fell, the consequences would be dire.
He shouldered his pack and set off into the forest at a run, the dull thud of his plated boots punctuating the otherwise eerie calm. He had completed his quest, locating one of the many cultist hideouts in the region and culling their numbers, only to discover a missive among the effects of the fallen: orders from their dark master to infiltrate the nearby town from within and harvest the souls of the innocent while they slept.
The orders would be carried out that very evening.
Damien picked up the pace still further, his breathing quickening to match his step. If this were the sum total of his problems, he might be able to handle it. Unfortunately, he’d agreed with his mom that he was going to complete his assignments before he started playing Saga Online, and she was expecting him at dinner in fifteen minutes.
While it would be terrible if Concoret fell to cultists, it would be far worse if his mother came in to find him, on his bed, wearing nothing but the VR headset and a pair of underpants. If she got to him before he could get to Concoret, she was going to be absolutely furious.
Damien slowed down just a little as he opened his stat window to inspect the day’s progress.
Account Name: Damien Arkwright
Character: Scorpius
Class: Warrior
Level: 28
Health: 854/1200
Stamina: 536/950
Stats:
Strength 116 - Agility 72 - Intelligence 37
Constitution 120 - Endurance 95 - Wisdom 37
Stat Points: 5
Experience: 1893/29000
He’d leveled up during combat, granting him five new stat points. He resisted the urge to put them into agility for the minor speed boost and dropped them into strength instead, where they’d be more useful. His stats defined everything Damien could or could not do in Saga Online, so he needed to take their allocation seriously.
It was certainly a more interesting set of criteria to judge him by than his Central Union footprint: male, Caucasian, sixteen, only child, single-parent custody, Online Tuition Bracket B, Household Income Threshold D, Health Insurance Policy D. Getting into Tuition Bracket B had been hard work, but the rest of it said very little about Damien at all. Rather, it was all focused on the circumstances of his birth. He much preferred his character’s stat sheet to his own, not least of all because he had some say in what it looked like. While he couldn’t customize his own settings, at least he could control how his character would grow.
Damien was no stranger to character building. He knew a character building exercise would quickly turn into a character destroying one if you didn’t choose carefully. So, he was all too aware that in failing to complete his assignments, he had not chosen well.
Damien closed the Stat window and willed himself to run faster. That last quest had taken far longer than it had any right to. The cultists were practitioners of dark magic, but they hadn’t been the real problem. With nothing but cloth vestments to protect them and very poor physical stats, they barely got halfway through casting before Damien employed his own special brand of magic – sticking his sword through their windpipe. Perma-silenced. No, the cultists had been easy. The problem was what they’d summoned.
Damien hoped never to see another imp again. In all his years of gaming he had never encountered such an absurdly unpredictable enemy.
Knee-high, ferocious and single-minded, imps were the personification of anger following an extensive lobotomy. When under cultist control, they behaved more or less the way you’d expect; clawing and biting, leaping and snarling. Unfortunately, when Damien killed their masters it was as if a cruel, mentally disturbed god had rolled a million-sided die to decide what they’d do next.
One of them had swiped Damien's torch, set itself on fire and clung onto his leg like a limpet, digging its claws in and screaming unintelligibly until it expired. That had caused significant damage, both to him and his equipped gear, as well as forcing him back to the dungeon entrance to find a new torch. Another had fled into the cave, where it maliciously leapt out from every other rock to kick Damien in the shin.
Oddly enough, the least time-consuming of these diversions had also been the worst by some margin; a particularly tenacious imp had clawed its way onto the ceiling and attempted to… relieve itself on him. In that moment, when something had plopped in front of Damien’s feet and prompted him to cast his eyes upward, any doubts he'd had about the realism of Saga Online were totally eradicated.
Damien shuddered at the memory. Probably served him right for lying about his age. Blurred out or not, imp ass was not what he’d hoped for when he declared he was eighteen or over. On the plus side, the stunt had backfired spectacularly when the shin-kicking imp slipped in the mess.
Thanks to the imp resistance, the quest had taken an entire hour – a good twenty minutes longer than Damien had budgeted for. Then, just when he thought it was over, Saga Online had thrown this timed event at him
.
Damien groaned as he ran, considering his options. Stop his own mother from being a bit mad in real life, or prevent several hundred from being murdered in virtual reality? Somehow, he didn’t think explaining the situation would end favorably.
“Sorry, Mom, I know I said this wouldn’t happen again but it was really important because I needed to save a bunch of make-believe people’s lives and if I hadn’t finished I’d have been nearly pooped on by an imp for nothing.”
No, that would probably cause more problems than solutions.
He glanced at the clock in the corner of his HUD, confirming that time was still going in one direction and it wasn’t the one he wanted.
Suddenly, he stopped running, coming to a halt just before a clearing. This was stupid. He wasn’t going to make it, he may as well log off and try to fix it after dinner.
Besides, he thought with a grimace, it’s a virtual town but a very real mother. He sighed and brought up the in-game menu. It overlaid his vision in transparent blue, the only hint of advanced technology in the game’s otherwise rigorously fantasy setting. Concoret would still be there when he got back. Probably.
His anxiety waning, Damien flicked through the menu options, his Neural Overlay Optics Booster headset reading his in-game movements and intentions in equal parts to create the desired effect. He was heading for the logout button when the menu suddenly went out of focus and a window popped up over it:
Voice Chat Invitation: Mobius46, Gamer ID 000046, A/D
Damien screamed internally. It was his handler from Mobius Enterprises. He glanced urgently at the time and decided he had just enough left to take this call. Then he would DEFINITELY log off. He gave a curt nod and heard a ping. They were now connected.
“Heeeeeeeeey! What’s going, what’s going on, errr,” Damien heard papers rustling on the other end, “Damien! Yeah, how are ya, buddy?”
Damien briefly considered providing constructive feedback about his imp experience but decided against it. He could give a more detailed report later.
“I’m doing fine thanks, Kevin, how ab—”
“Greeaaaaaaat, great, that’s great. Um, listen, how would you like to run against a mob we need to beta test? You’ll be the first person to fight it, ever! Isn’t that cool? I’m uploading the file to you now.”
Damien resisted the urge to drop the call and log out. This was a much more serious issue than his quest; he could not afford to upset this guy. It was only thanks to Kevin that he could play the game at all.
Kevin had been assigned to him a month ago, when Damien had signed up for beta testing Saga Online. Sure, it was on a private server with no other players and he could only play two zones, but that was still a lot of content. Kevin had set him up with the game, even going so far as to provide him with an aptly named NOOB headset when he heard Damien didn’t have one.
It was low-end tech compared to the rest of the stuff Mobius Enterprises was putting out, but still far beyond the means of a family with a Household Income Threshold D rating. The headset was the most advanced piece of gaming equipment Damien had ever owned, quite possibly the most advanced gaming equipment he would ever own. In exchange for such luxuries, Damien was required to test elements of upcoming game content.
As stressed out as Damien was, he had to admit that Kevin deserved his respect. Even if he couldn’t remember Damien’s name.
“I’m really sorry, Kevin, but my mom’s waiting for me, I ha—”
“No… Nonono! Please, don’t do this to me!”
Damien faltered. He’d never heard Kevin so upset. His breathing had become labored and it sounded like he was having a panic attack.
“Kevin? What’s going on?”
Kevin heaved in a deep breath before expelling it in a garbled wave of hysteria.
“All right, all right, I’m sorry, I haven’t been totally straight with you, I’ve got a live company broadcast at six thirty, and I had a guy, a streamer, who said he was going to do it for me - but he bailed out just a few minutes ago. There are loads of people coming to watch the channel and I’ve got no one to fill the gap. You two are the only contacts I have left online right now, Damien; if you don’t help me, I’m screwed. All the advertising, the preparation, the work I’ve done on this mob – it’ll all be wasted. They’ll take it out of my hands and give it to someone else. I’ll be passed over, I’ll never get high profile projects again. Please!”
Damien froze, catching sight of the clock in his peripheral vision. 18:27. Not that it mattered; if the broadcast started at 18:30 then helping Kevin would make him late to dinner either way.
“I’ve got to check with my mom. I’ll log off and come back before—”
“There’s no time, Damien. I have to start uploading the data to your headset now and I need you online. Please stay!”
Damien glanced at the clock again - 18:28. This man had given him the opportunity to test a game beyond his wildest dreams. Now he was relying on Damien for his career. Oh, boy. He didn’t know who was going to regret this more.
“OK. Talk me through it, Kevin.”
He heard the clacking of keys over his headset and moments later, a download icon appeared in the menu:
File received: spin2win.
Download? Yes/No
Damien focused on the choice box and nodded, prompting a download icon to appear in the top right corner. A terabyte in three minutes.
User Mobius46 would like to teleport you to ‘Test Zone’.
Do you accept? Yes/No
With a single nod of his head, the game world disappeared around him and a loading animation appeared. Seconds later, Damien was dropped onto his feet. Without time to brace himself for a landing he collapsed onto his backside. Off to a good start, then.
Cursing under his breath, he stood and took in his surroundings. He was in the center of an enormous underground arena, lit by a multitude of glowing white orbs floating lazily across the enclosed space. Densely packed golden sand underfoot would provide sure footing, but Damien could not see any exits. The most striking features the arena held were four vast stone columns, each the width of several men, that stretched to the ceiling high overhead.
Kevin interrupted his analysis. “I’ve got you on-screen, Damien. We’re live in one minute. Are you ready?”
Damien opened his menu and checked the download progress. Two minutes to go.
“The download isn’t ready yet.”
“Relax, I’ll introduce you first and then we’ll get started. Once the download is complete, all you have to do is activate it from your menu and the mob will appear.”
Damien gritted his teeth. He thought he’d made it clear they didn’t have time to waste.
“You better make it fast. When I don’t show up for dinner my mom will cut the power.”
Kevin sputtered as Damien’s problem suddenly and forcefully became his. “But—but she can’t do that. You’re supposed to ease yourself out. Turning the software off while it’s still running could cause negative side effe—”
“Why are you telling me? I told you I needed to check with her before we started. Now you know why.”
Damien wandered over to one of the columns and removed his bag, dropping it carelessly on the floor. He set his back to the column and folded his arms.
“Just set it all up and hope for the best. We’ve got a few minutes, tops.”
Kevin let out a mournful wail. Damien couldn’t see him, but he envisaged copious amounts of hand-wringing.
“The feed is supposed to last for half an hour!”
Damien shrugged. There was nothing he could do about that.
“Better get on with it, then.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
“Okay, I have an idea. I think….” There was more paper rustling. “Yeah, I think we can make it work. I’m sending you the live feed request now. This is the one that allows everyone to watch what you’re doing. They’ll see everything through your eyes,
so behave yourself!”
A new window appeared on Damien’s screen, considerably longer than those that had preceded it. It was a terms and conditions package.
“It’s an agreement to do a live stream. Just scroll to the bottom and accept. Nobody reads these things, anyway… and don’t tell anyone I said that.”
Suppressing a laugh, Damien flicked through several pages before he came to the familiar Accept/Decline box at the end. With a nod, the window disappeared. It was promptly replaced with a chat box.
Kevin let out a long sigh of relief. “Well done, Damien, we’re just in time.”
The clock ticked over to 18:30 and the chat box suddenly came alive with activity:
TwinkyWinky2047: first!
CactusLover: Hi!
Vargus: wuttup noobs
Naughtylus: second!
Robodozer: first!
Robodozer: oh gaddammit lol
OccumsAxe: lol fail
Enlsdkfislde: Hey guys come watch Sagarama every day at 8pm
EvilAye: Piss off bot
Showtaymuuuu: third!
As more users poured into the chat box, the messages came and went so fast Damien didn’t even have time to read one before the next swept in, a stream of useless information that would never be read. In the span of a few seconds, three thousand five hundred and sixty-two people had joined the channel, and it was still rising. Damien was stunned. This was not what he had been expecting.