On My Brother's Grave: Reconnaissance: A LitRPG Adventure (Vatenkeist Online Book 1)

by E. M. Hardy

  “I’m toast,” I muttered before the Jelly charged at me. I felt the beast’s whole weight slam against my body and, in that instant, I collapsed to the ground, wheezing as the life fluttered out of me for the second time today.

  “Not again!” I said, and I dissolved back into the black ethereal nothingness.

  As soon as I materialized back in front of the Save Girl, with 1 HP to spare, I dashed my way out of town and got back to the exact same spot I had croaked at. I picked up my bow and saw that the same Jelly was still there, ten feet away, once again munching on flowers.

  “I am not going to quit,” I said out loud, as I rushed once more and smacked the Jelly. Just like before, the creature flashed white for a moment and then turned around to fight. This time, however, I quickly dodge rolled to the side, evading its tackle. I wasn’t going to fall for the same trick twice.

  “I’m not as fast or as strong as I would want to be,” I said to myself, “but I definitely can outsmart a damn blue bouncing Jelly.”

  The enemy was pivoting on its feet – or whatever it walked on – to face me. As it did, I struck it again with my bow. Immediately after landing the hit, I rolled to evade its attack. That was when I realized the Jelly had but one very basic battle tactic: it could only tackle.

  And so our little dance began. I would whack the Jelly once and then roll out of the way to dodge its tackle. This went on for another few rounds until, after the sixth or seventh hit, the enemy finally burst into several pieces.

  “Holy crap, that took forever,” I grumbled as I stooped down to pick up the Jelly bits. For my efforts, there were only three instead of four.

  With a grimace, I placed the pieces in my bag. That at least would grant me 6 copper pieces. I could do this a few more times, collect some Jelly bits, sell them and buy myself a few arrows. Perhaps, with actual ammo, I could take these things down quicker.

  My eyes darted around as I then began to hunt for my next target. I spotted one Jelly alone near the tree line, just a quarter mile away from my current position. I didn’t wait a second longer and rushed in and attacked. This time, the battle was much quicker. When the monster was defeated, I snagged four Jelly bits from it.

  For the next forty minutes, I went around with this routine. I spotted another Jelly and then another. Each one of them, I took down with nothing more but blunt smacks and dodge rolls, abusing the enemy AI and its inability to think of newer strategies.

  By the time I was done, I had slain twelve Jellies and collected forty-five Jelly bits. When I looked up at the virtual sky, I noticed the colors were slightly changing. The blue shade above head had shifted into a gorgeous array of indigo, purple, pink and orange. It was nearly evening and, as the sun set off in the distance, the other end of the sky glittered with the shine of the moon and stars. It was utterly amazing to see how realistic they had made this world.

  Satisfied that I had my fill, I figured it was time to go back into town and buy myself some equipment. I slung my bow around my shoulder and began my stroll down the main road.

  In my head, I had everything planned out: I’d buy some arrows, leave cash to buy a drink or two, and then use that opportunity to start a quest. If I wanted to meet up with the Ascendants, I needed to prove I wasn’t a useless nobody, otherwise they would just do to me what they had done to Jason. It’d be like repeating the experience I had with Parnax. I had to complete some quests, get stronger and build a resume to impress them. Only then could I join their ranks and find out their personal information.

  As I neared the gates, I suddenly heard a cry coming from the other side of a small grassy hill.

  “O-oh help!” the female voice called out.

  I turned away. This was none of my business.

  “Please, somebody, help!”

  Spending so many years as a gun for hire had, to a large extent, desensitized me to other people’s woes. But still, I could recognize real distress when I saw or heard it.

  “What the heck,” I figured, as I dashed off the road and over the hill to calm that resurgence of compassion.

  When I reached the top, I saw a girl down at the bottom. She was an elf – I assumed so, given she had those pointy ears – with silver-platinum hair. She was clad in heavy chain mail armor with leather padding, and carried a wooden shield and a mace in her hands. She was standing her ground and blocking attacks from a Jelly.

  “What the… Hit it!” I shouted down at her. “You’re not going to last long down there if all you do is block.”

  The girl didn’t look up as she cried back, “But I can’t attack!”

  What? Why not? I looked at the situation again, and it didn’t take too long for me to realize what was going on. She could block no problem but, each time she did, her shield would momentarily flash. Then, the elf appeared to be stunned for a second or two. By the time she could move again, the Jelly was lunging in for another tackle and she’d be forced to block again. In other words, she was locked in an endless cycle, like Bill Murray in that old movie with the beaver or something.

  “This is so stupid,” I cursed under my breath as I slid down the hill and lunged forward at the Jelly. Just as the creature slammed against the elf’s shield, I clipped it with my bow. The creature turned around and tackled. I rolled out of the way and repeated my technique of smacking and dodging.

  As soon as the girl could move, she quickly got between me and the Jelly. She blocked again, giving me the opportunity to hit the enemy freely. When I did, it burst into four little bits.

  “Damn,” I commented, when I picked up the four Jelly bits. I handed two to the girl and said, “I’m Fhauste.”

  “Call me Elia,” she replied, and she accepted the two Jelly bits. She placed them in a sling bag similar to mine, except that hers was white whereas mine was light brown. “Thank you for helping me, by the way. I don’t know how long I would have been stuck in that fight if you didn’t come.”

  I shrugged and said, “It’s no problem. I understand where you’re coming from. I’m actually pretty new to this game.”

  “So am I,” Elia admitted. “To be honest, I haven’t played video games in years. I just decided this would be a fun adventure after seeing a commercial on my phone, so I gave it a try.”

  We began to make our way back to Strovport when she said, “You’ve got a pretty impressive strategy against those Jellies. How come you’re not firing with any arrows?”

  “I don’t have any,” I answered. “I’ve been going around for nearly an hour smacking these things with my bow.”

  Elia came to a halt and she grabbed my hand. She then stared at me with wide eyes and asked, “Y-you’ve been fighting those things for that long without any arrows? How many did you kill?”

  “Twelve,” I told her. “Well, thirteen now with the one we took down together.”

  I then accessed my menu and showed her I only had 1 HP left. I then said, “I’ve had absolutely no luck today. Some Venaris guy named Parnax tricked me and took all my arrows and Jelly bits when I first arrived in town. I’ve had to kill these things just so I could afford buying arrows, potions and stuff at the Muddy Princess.”

  Elia shook her head in disbelief and said, “Well, let’s go. I bet with all the Jellies you took down, you’re ready to level up.”

  “Huh? Isn’t it automatic? Wait, how do I know how much EXP I need to reach the next level?”

  She shook her head again and explained, “This isn’t like those old video games. We players don’t automatically get to see how much EXP we have. All we can do is go to a local priest and ask them for a divination. That’s a process that informs you how much EXP you have and how much you still need to level up. You can only level up after taking a long rest – which equates to eight hours. Let’s go to the Muddy Princess or to another inn and call it a night. I’ve killed a few Jellies as well, so I think I’ll hit Level 2 in the morning. Crossing fingers.”

  The girl seemed nice enou
gh. I nodded in agreement and we headed into town. She took me to a small apothecary shop run by a dwarven male with long green hair and a short beard. There, we sold the Jelly bits – I earned 9 silver pieces and 4 copper pieces, while Elia earned 1 silver piece and 8 copper pieces – and made our way to the Muddy Princess. I thought of trying a quieter inn, but neither of us knew our way around Strovport.

  Before we made it back to the Muddy Princess, my companion grabbed my arm and asked, “Can you pull up your menu real quick?”

  I looked at her in confusion and asked, “What for?”

  “Just do it, please, so we can keep in touch,” she explained.

  “All right,” I said with a shrug. “Access menu.”

  My menu screen flashed up and she quickly accessed hers as well. She tapped the “Options” bar and instructed me to do the same.

  “Okay, please hit the ‘Friends’ bar and then tap my shoulder or hand. I’ll then confirm the request and we can be friends,” she told me. As we went through the procedure, she explained further, “This will help us along the way if we ever get separated. Anytime you want to check if I’m online or send me a message, just tap my name in your friends list.”

  That was easy enough to understand. We finished the process and continued on our way.

  Fortunately for us, the barkeep had a few rooms available. This came as a surprise to me, seeing as how millions of people were probably playing this game right now. When we got to our rooms, I finally found out how and why this was possible: each room had twelve double-deck beds. If we wanted to get a private room with only one or two beds, we’d have to pay 12 gold per person. For a stay in one of these cramped rooms, we only had to spend 2 silver pieces each.

  Elia didn’t mind as long as she could have the top bunk. I agreed and decided to rest in the bottom bunk. I didn’t have to take off my light leather armor but I heard Elia removing the straps of her mail, so she could rest in peace.

  I then lay my head on a pillow and allowed myself to drift off to sleep.

  Chapter Six

  A bright light flashed and I found myself back in Jason’s room. I removed the headgear and placed it on the pillow. I felt a little groggy and had to take a few minutes to reorient myself before I took a look around.

  Wow, that had been quite the experience. I reached out to the desk and for my phone. When I discovered it was only 9:41 am, I was quickly taken aback. My eyes darted back and forth as I tried to surmise how much time I had spent in the world of Vatenkeist before Elia and I rested at the inn.

  It was roughly late-afternoon when I first popped into Strovport. I spent a good fifteen to twenty minutes with Parnax, died, and then wasted another good twenty to thirty minutes before I managed to kill my first Jelly. I then spent nearly an hour fighting those Jellies, plus around five minutes fighting the one attacking Elia. We went around town a bit and exchanged the Jelly bits for money. That must have taken half an hour because of all the people in the shop. By the time we got into the Muddy Princess, night was falling.

  Altogether, I had spent a good three hours in the game. Or in other words: I had been logged in for only about ten minutes, but three hours had passed in Vatenkeist Online. This meant a long rest of eight hours would only be a little more than twenty minutes or so.

  When I reached for my cup of coffee and took a sip, I found it was still warm. I took the time to finish my drink as I sat down in the computer chair and pondered about the experience.

  Back when Jason first got this game, which was about three or four months ago based on the records I had found after his death, he tended to stay plugged in for a good four to five hours. That meant he could have eaten his lunch, stayed in the game for roughly three days, logged back out and still be in time for a snack or dinner.

  I grabbed my phone and checked for messages. The only one that mattered was a text from the chief superintendent who told me the different mob families in the city were beginning to wage a war against each other. They were all fighting for the leftover territory once owned by the crime family I had taken out the other night. The chief said the violence wouldn’t last long – these smaller crime syndicates were too small and would not be able to fight the police forever.

  At least that issue was out of the way. I didn’t want to get involved with another real-world battle until I had my revenge. That would be a problem though if I couldn’t sustain my body in the real world.

  Just to make sure, I checked my banking app on my phone again, and gave out a sigh of relief when I read the amount sleeping in my account. With that much money, I could relax and not take another job for months and I’d still be completely fine.

  Once I had finished my cup of coffee, I got up and headed to my personal bedroom. I spent the rest of my morning refreshing myself. I took a hot shower, ate some food in the fridge and watched the news for nearly an hour.

  After my morning routine, I took off to the gym, worked out for forty minutes and then went to the mall to check out a video game store. When I finally got there, I noticed there were a lot of advertisements for Vatenkeist Online.

  I stood there for a bit, staring at some of the posters. Even the screenshots looked real. It was as if someone had visited a fantasy world in a different dimension or planet and taken actual photos there. For a grounded guy like me, it seemed so surreal.

  “Hello sir, are you interested in giving Vatenkeist Online a try? It’s all the rage these days,” one of the sales assistants approached me. It was a young male in his early twenties who had slick black hair and brown eyes. He kind of reminded me of a samurai I saw once in a movie.

  “Oh, but I already tried it a bit just today,” I answered as politely as I could. “I have a question though. How does time work in the game? I was only logged in for ten minutes but it was like three hours in the game.”

  The sales assistant chuckled and nodded as he explained, “Yes, that’s how it goes, sir. The VR headgear simulates the same process the brain does when we dream. In our dreams, time passes differently. A whole day could have passed in your dream but in reality it was only an hour or so.”

  That made sense.

  “Okay, I have another one for you. I was wondering how the game knew how I looked in real life,” I asked. “There didn’t seem to be any scanning device or something like that.”

  “It accessed your brain,” the assistant explained further. “It basically accessed the portion that helps you identify who you are and how you look. By altering this side of the brain, it also affects how you look in the game itself. Well, that’s how the trailers explained it anyway.”

  That was interesting. However, I still had a few questions left. My hand circled around in a senseless gesture as I continued to prod. “One last thing. What’s the suggested limit to stay in the game? It’s hard to keep track of the real world time in there.”

  “Ten hours in the real world, which is – I think – around a week in the game,” he answered. “Your menu screen will flash and give you a reminder to let you know it’s time to log out for a bit. There’s a button in the Options menu that says RWS. It stands for Real World Status. That will let you know how your body is doing in the real world, what time and date it is, and you can even take a moment to check your social media accounts, news sites and others. It’s like logging into a regular browser.”

  Well that was good to know. I wished Lorelai had informed me about all that. I guessed games just liked to toss players into the thick of the action. Back when I was a kid, we still had to read through instruction manuals.

  “Thanks. Appreciate it,” I said to the young guy.

  The sales assistant nodded and bid me farewell with a smile. I took a moment to glance at the other VR games available, but none of them had the same “real world” appeal that Vatenkeist Online had. I could understand why Jason had become so engrossed with this game. It was literally like living a new life in a new world.

  When I got home, I didn’t im
mediately jump right back into the game. I spent some time on the computer to research more about the game. I had a few snacks as well, knowing that I might end up stuck in the game for hours in the real world so I could get the most out of my time in Vatenkeist.

  I first clicked on a browser and visited the game’s official website. I did the most basic thing and clicked on a list of classes: as it turned out, there were other classes similar to the Pugilist, ones that I couldn’t access until I had acquired certain in-game achievements like playing for fifty real world hours and having at least one character reach Level 10.

  Those additional classes included the Pugilist, Divine Knight, Barbarian, Gunner, Alchemist and Blood Witch. All of them sounded pretty cool, but I had no idea how they functioned. For the time being, I was happy with being a Hunter. Perhaps I could consider multi-classing later on, once the option opened up.

  Hmm, they’ve got a forum, I thought to myself when I saw the link. I clicked on it and took a broad glance at the message board. There were a lot of different topic threads, some of which really tickled my fancy, but there was one that immediately caught my eye and earned priority. It was a thread discussing newbie quest lines.

  I clicked on the topic and the page loaded. Plenty of gamers were asking which quests were recommended before hitting Level 4. Some of the propositions seemed a little boring, like escorting a merchant through the Jelly field outside Strovport or helping the apothecary clear his basement of rats.

  None of those seemed appealing enough. However, one suggestion did spark my curiosity: it involved hunting down several goblins on the East Road, just south of Strovport. Now that was something I could sink my teeth in. Not only was it heavily focused on combat – which would definitely make leveling up go faster – but it would let me get more accustomed to how the game worked.