Forest (Gaia's Rebirth Book 1)

by Caiden Walker

  Ash shook her head in Nika’s direction. “Does that mean he is a happy camper now? If so, we are in for a fun journey ahead.”

  “I heard that,” Dean said.

  “I meant for you to,” Ash said. “But in case you didn’t know, I was really looking forward to this experience, and you have been nothing but a wet blanket ever since we hit our first battle. If you could just remember that this is a game, maybe you could have some fun with it. Hell, maybe we could all have a little fun.”

  He stopped in the middle of the town’s street and turned to her, taking a deep breath. “Look I’m sorry, I really am, but this isn’t what I expected at all. When you play a game in your own home, you’re just watching it unfold on the screen. Sure, I thought this would be cool, but no way did I think it would be this real.” He blushed. “To be perfectly honest, I’m pretty sure I shit myself in the real world when I got trapped in that spider web. It’s hard to remember you are in a game when there is a giant spider heading toward you to eat your face off.”

  Dean grew quiet. “Now that I think about it, what would have happened if it had reached me? Would it have hurt when it bit me?” He was starting to panic again, and they were still safe in the town.

  Nika shook her head. “You’d feel it, but it wouldn’t be a bad pain, more like the feeling you get when you rake a fingernail across your skin. We had toyed with the idea of players not feeling anything at all, but sometimes that minor pain is the first indication that you have of being under attack.”

  He swallowed. “So it won’t hurt terribly, even if the monsters get to us? And if they keep attacking faster than we can heal, then we just get booted back to that fountain, right?”

  “See, Dean? A game, just like I said. Think about it, how cool will it be to tell your kid brother that you actually stood toe to toe with those giant spiders that he’s only faced on a plasma screen?” Ash said, trying to win him over.

  He thought about it for a minute, and Ash could tell that Nika was getting impatient. She knew time was of the essence right now, but said time would pass so much more pleasantly if Dean joined in the fun instead of making their lives a living hell. It was worth a minute a two.

  Nika must have thought so, too, because she didn’t once try to rush him. Instead, she just stood there waiting with Ash.

  Finally, he gave them an awkward smile. “Okay, when you put it that way, I’m in.”

  Ash slapped him on the back. “Welcome to the party, Dean.”

  “But fair warning, once we get to that escape hatch, no guarantees I’ll continue with you guys,” he said.

  “Understood,” Ash said. “Besides, depending on what Nika finds out, none of us may be going on.” That thought made her sad. She knew the others were miserable, but she was actually enjoying herself. She’d love the opportunity to finish the game in style. Maybe Nika would give her a rain check to come back once things were straightened out.

  Of course, if her hopes panned out and Nika hired her on as a party guide, she’d be in the game more than out of it. That was one of the reasons she really wanted them to finish the game. More time to impress Nika with her skill.

  They had reached the path to the spiders before Nika spoke. “Just out of curiosity, did either of you answer that systems message about wishing to continue?”

  “I didn’t,” Ash said.

  “I guess I didn’t get far enough on the other road. It never gave me that message,” Dean said.

  Nika looked relieved. “That’s good,” she said. “If it comes on again, let’s have a chat before any of us answer, okay?”

  Ash and Dean nodded and then waited for Nika to lead the way. After a few steps, she turned and smiled. “I guess if we go this way, they consider us still in training. No message.”

  Dean shifted his bow around to be able to access it quickly. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go kill some spiders.”

  Ash grinned at him, “Level three, here we come.”

  They were ready for the spiders this time and dispatched them with ease. Ash figured part of that was being prepared, and the other part was that one additional level they had gained. There were three spiders this time, but her experience bar only went up about ten percent. They had gained most of their experience yesterday from the second, larger group they had faced.

  “Which way from here?” Ash asked, looking around. She couldn’t wait to get the map capability. If it was like the version she played, the map would show enemies in your vicinity as red dots. That was really good information to know.

  Nika paused and looked around, apparently getting her bearings. Finally, she stopped and pointed in the opposite direction from that they had taken yesterday.

  “There. See that red flower?”

  Ash nodded.

  “We need to watch for more of them. I planted them as a kind of breadcrumb trail to the back door in this area. There should be another one in sight before we lose sight of this one.”

  Dean swallowed but was still trying to be brave. Ash noted with a bit of pride that he had gathered the arrows he had used against the spiders and restocked them into his inventory. So the man could be taught, she thought.

  “Um, does that mean we have to go deeper into the woods?” he asked.

  “Afraid so. If I’d put the door too close to the path, people would have stumbled across it. It’s far enough away that no one should be running into it unless they know it’s there.”

  “Undiscovered territory?” Ash asked, slightly in awe. She’d never thought to stray too much from the paths in the game. Smiling, she realized there may be hours upon hours of game play that she had left unexplored. Something to look forward to.

  Nika moved forward, searching for the next flower. “I’m pretty sure I laid them out in a fairly straight line due East.” She glanced up at the sun, which in this world had an actual visual presence. “That would make it this way.” She walked a few feet and smiled back at them. “And there it is. Come on, guys, this way.”

  Dean went second, leaving Ash to bring in the rear. She figured he didn’t want to run the risk of being surprised from behind. Since of the three of them, he was the lone elf, his hearing here should be the best of all of them, but she didn’t have the heart to push it on him.

  As she stepped out of the clearing and between the trees, she hesitated. She had caught the quickest glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. Stopping she turned and searched for the movement. More spiders?

  But nothing made itself known, and she couldn’t see anything out of place. Shrugging, she stepped off the path and hurried to catch up with the others.

  They were well within sight when she reached the second flower sign post, so she took a moment to stop and sniff the flower. Legend had it that flowers grown in the wild had fantastic scents. Breathing deeply, she was extremely pleased to learn that legends were right. The scent was light and mingled with the scent of pine from the trees and other fresh smells that Ash simply couldn’t put a name to. Shoot, for all she knew, she could be catching the slight scent of grass.

  With that thought, she had to know, so she went to her knees and put her nose within inches of the waving blades. Disappointed, she stood again. No, grass didn’t smell. At least not to those players who had chosen human as their race. She’d have to ask Dean...

  Her thoughts were interrupted by shouting up ahead and she realized the rest of her party were no longer in sight.

  She ran.

  Chapter Eight: Blake in the Real World

  Blake came into the building with a lift in his step and a smile on his face. Everything was going precisely as he had planned it. In a matter of days, he would be an extremely wealthy man.

  What, or rather who, he wouldn’t be any longer was Blake Nolan. Actually, Blake Nolan never existed. Well, okay, he had existed, but the real Blake had done him the favor of dying without proof of death. That made it very easy for the new and improved Blake to step into his unfilled shoes and run.
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  Three years ago, he had been a lowly programmer working at a competing virtual company. Their technology was not nearly so advanced as Gaia’s Rebirth and the powers that be within that company had approached him with a plan.

  Well, she had approached him. If the offer had come from anyone else in the corporation, he probably would have turned it down. Back then he liked to think that he had such things as morals. Come to find out, no, he really didn’t.

  Word on the street was that the senior executive of Gaia’s Rebirth, Nika’s father, was on the downslide and that soon Nika would be the sole owner of the whole kit and caboodle. When that happened, she would be a very wealthy individual. Even more so than she was then, which wasn’t anything to sneeze at.

  So Cora Bain had brought him a deal. Go to work for Gaia’s, court the beautiful Nika, and help them steal the technology right out from under them. The idea was that if he was Nika’s current beau, he would be seen as above reproach from anyone looking for a nasty corporate spy.

  And it had worked like a charm although it had taken far longer than they had planned. The old man had hung on for two and a half more agonizing years. Agonizing to him not, unfortunately, the old man. No, he seemed to rally and get stronger with each passing day. If his old company hadn’t taken matters into their own hands and helped things along, the codger would probably still be alive today.

  The most delicious thing about his deal was that he got Cora in the bargain. He had been far from a virgin when she first took him to bed, but it had felt like losing his virginity all over again. As it did each and every time. She was an amazingly energetic and inventive lover. Oh, the things they had done and the places they had done them in! There was just no end to her imagination.

  That alone was worth the price of the deal. But the money was a good incentive too. He and Cora would copy Gaia’s technology, take the payout from VirTech, and live a long and impressively extravagant life in another country. There was a small island that he had his eyes on. Wouldn’t be out of his price range for much longer.

  So, yes, he couldn’t seem to wipe the grin off his face no matter how hard he tried. Especially since, with Nika out of the picture, Cora was back in his nightly bed. And would be from here on out as he was going to make damn sure Nika stayed in that virtual world until this deal was complete. After three long years, it was finally almost there.

  He walked into the hub of activity that used to be Nika’s office. Most of the firm’s employees were watching the game unfold downstairs in the player’s lounge where a huge half-wall plasma had been erected just for that purpose.

  However, since those employees were loyal to the company and his wife, that didn’t work well for Blake. So he and his small but creative team were watching the progress from the large plasma in Nika’s—now his—office. Once he had gotten into a position with a little power, he had begun bringing a few people over from VirTech and putting them in small innocuous positions within the company. The corporation helped by creatively making job openings appear where none might have. Kind of like what they did with Nika’s father.

  Now he and his team were working around the clock to bring Gaia’s technology home to the finish line at VirTech. The programmers and system’s experts had done a good job of protecting their intellectual property, but no one could protect them from a small, brilliant team that had access to everything. Their very own Trojan Horse would be Gaia’s downfall.

  If possible, his smile grew larger. It would be Nika’s downfall as well. He had thought it would be fun to woo and marry her, a little variety in the bedroom is never a bad thing. But he had thought wrong. She was the polar opposite of his lovely Cora.

  Sure, she was beautiful and had an amazing body, but there it ended. She had no idea how to use what she had, and any of his suggestions were met with horror and refusal. Hell, she wouldn’t even wear the negligee he had given her on their wedding night to spice things up a bit.

  That’s why he had made that little costume change for the available character classes. Just to mess with her. And it had been worth it even though Cora hadn’t approved. She had said it was unwise to give Nika a reason to want out of the game so early, but he thought her real reason was how hot Nika looked in that damn thong. The custodian downstairs must be working overtime just to mop up the drool.

  And it wasn’t like they had anything to worry about. Nika and her small party weren’t going anywhere. His team had made sure of that with a few simple program tweaks.

  He moved to the large desk in the center of the room and glanced over at the team, already hard at work on the portable work stations they had set up along the wall. Each one of them plugged into the very heart of Gaia’s Rebirth.

  “Good morning, team,” he said. “I take it everything is on schedule?”

  The three members on the computers ignored him as always, not even bothering to look up from their flying fingers. Really, they had no sense of just who was in charge here.

  Cora, who had left her apartment before him, was standing in front of the plasma. He noticed she had a frown on her face. That wouldn’t do.

  He walked over to her, wanting nothing more than to throw an arm around her shoulders. But she didn’t allow touching in the workplace. It wouldn’t be smart to alert those employees left that were still loyal to Nika. Not that any of them had access to the penthouse level of the building. Still, it was her one rule, and one he could live with.

  “Why the frown?”

  She glanced over at him and the frown deepened. “They aren’t heading to Riser’s Creek. They turned around.”

  He gave her a questioning look, then glanced at the screen. Forest, trees, Nika in her hot little thong, it all looked fine to him.

  Blake, as he was known for the time, shrugged. “So they decided to do a bit more training before heading out. They probably just want to hit level three so the Mage can get her healing spell. That’s always a big push in the game.”

  “I think you need to take a closer look at the screen,” she said, her voice brisk and impatient.

  He did. And when it finally hit him, he stared in horror. “They’re off the map.” Then the reality hit him. That damn little bitch had made a back door. A door that could ruin everything.

  Turning, he started yelling to the team. “She’s put in a back door, find it—Now!”

  Cora turned to him. “They are already working on it,” she said.

  “But you don’t understand,” Blake ranted. “If she gets through that door...”

  “Believe me, we all understand the ramifications if that happens,” Cora cut him off mid-sentence. “Can I see you for a minute in the conference room, Blake?”

  “Now?” He asked incredulously. “In the middle of the crisis?”

  “Yes, now. The programmers will either stop her or they won’t, and we need to talk.”

  He really didn’t like the new pissed-off version of Cora. Pulling himself to full height, he tried to assert himself back into the leadership position. From her expression, he didn’t think it worked all that well.

  “Fine.” He turned and stormed out, walking the short distance to the conference room. Cora followed and shut the door firmly behind her.

  “I hope you see what your high school costume prank has cost us,” she said.

  He whirled on her. “You’re blaming me for this?”

  “You better believe I’m blaming you for this,” she said. “If you hadn’t pulled that juvenile costume change on her chosen class, she wouldn’t have tried to exit the game in the staging area only to find the door closed. And she wouldn’t have been too concerned about there not being a station in the beginner town. She would have quietly went on her way to Riser’s Creek, with her little party in tow. That would have given us at least another few days to get the technology copied.”

  “It’s not my fault your techs are so slow. That should have been done and us on our way to Fiji by now. If there is blame, it is on them.”

  S
he shook her head. “With all the security measures in place, we had to wait until Nika and that loyal guard dog of hers were both safely out of the picture. That was just yesterday. The techs have been working non-stop since then, but they keep having to bypass internal security even here inside the beast of the program itself.”

  One long lone finger poked Blake in the center of his chest. “No, the blame rests on you and you alone. If they can’t find the door before she goes through it, this is going to get ugly fast. And you can bank on VirTech knowing exactly who to thank for all their expense and time going to waste.”

  Blake swallowed. The gravity of the situation finally hitting him like a blow to the gut. VirTech was not a company to be on the wrong side of. If this deal fell through now, they would end him.

  Turning on his heels, he pulled open the door to the conference room and fairly ran back to the office. Once there, his attention went immediately to the plasma.

  A pack of NPC coyotes had the party surrounded. Unfortunately, even in the undiscovered areas of the maps, the creatures would match the level of the town they were closest to. With this area surrounding the beginning town, the monsters here would be anywhere from level one to three, but not above. No match for experienced players, even low-level ones.

  But what if the monsters weren’t so low leveled? He touched a programmer’s shoulder. The man glared up at him, his fingers still posed on the keyboard.

  “How long would it take to change the level of the monsters in this area? Like, oh say, those coyotes right there?”

  The programmer glanced over to the plasma, a slow smile cracking his face. He didn’t even bother to reply. Instead, his fingers moved over the keyboard in wild abandon.

  Within a matter of a minute, the battle changed drastically. The coyotes were no longer losing. Blake smiled as the level in the tag above the creatures changed from two to twenty.

  Yes, he thought. That should do it. Nika and her party wouldn’t be reaching that damn door anytime in the near future.