Reternity Online : Rescue Quest : DIRECTOR'S CUT : a LitRPG Epic

by Baron Sord

  “Be careful with it,” the clerk warned. “It’s very powerful.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It looks good on you,” Layna said to me. “Have you picked out any armor yet?”

  “No.” It was bugging me she was being so helpful and doting on me like this.

  She said, “You might want to consider some light armor. Nothing too heavy to slow you down.”

  I wanted to blurt, I’m not 6, so I think I can figure out my own armor, Mom. But I was determined to be nice.

  Layna smiled hopefully, sensing my irritation. “There’s some really nice leather armor over here.”

  Yeah, and? I didn’t say it. Just looked at her.

  “Do you want me to show you?” Her face was starting to whither.

  “Yeah, sure,” I sighed. “Where is it?” I asked absently. I could feel Ty giving me a questionable look, like he could tell I was being a dick. Whatever. He didn’t understand. Qoorie was his wife, not an ape. I followed Layna to the armor.

  “Isn’t this nice?” she said.

  I took a look.

  Fencer’s Jacket — Weight: 2.75 kg. Durability: 40. Availability: Uncommon. Armor: +15. A blend of finely crafted leather and padding, designed for maximum protection and maximum mobility.

  Fencer’s Leather Boots — Weight: 1.75 kg. Durability: 25. Availability: Uncommon. Armor: +5. Supple leather knee-high boots.

  Fencer’s Leather Pants — Weight: 1.5 kg. Durability: 20. Availability: Uncommon. Armor: +5. Flexible tight leather pants with added cross-stitched panels for increased leg mobility.

  This gear would boost my Armor rating up to 66, but…

  “If I wear this,” I grumbled, “I’ll look like a frickin’ pirate.”

  “I think it looks sexy,” Qoorie said.

  “Watch it woman,” Ty chuckled.

  “For a human,” she purred, winking her cat eye at him.

  “Better’n looking like Tarzan,” Dad joked. “You should take the set.”

  “Fine,” I groused. “But no pirate jokes.”

  “Rrrrrr, no pirate jokes hereabouts,” Layna said with a pirate accent and a huge smile, “or ye be walkin’ the plank in accord with Captain Logan’s pleasure! R! R! Rrrrr!” Her delivery was perfectly piratical and everybody laughed.

  Even me.

  I quickly hid it and frowned.

  Maybe Jason was wrong. Maybe Layna wasn’t an AIPC. Maybe there was a real woman behind Layna.

  Nah.

  Maybe?

  Nah.

  Dad said, “Anybody ready to go do some power-leveling?”

  “Count me in,” Ty said enthusiastically.

  “Me too,” Q said.

  “Logan?” Layna looked at me.

  “Yeah, yeah. Let’s go.”

  Before leaving Jason’s stronghold, everybody grabbed some basics like leather sacks, first aid supplies, and food rations, in case we were gone longer than a few hours. We also had to check everything out with the clerk, who wrote our names down in a huge leather-bound white-black ledger using a white-black feather pen that apparently had magic ink because it never ran out.

  —: o o o :—

  “Oh, man! Who wants to use the hang gliders?” I was grinning from ear to ear.

  I’d always wanted to try hang gliding. We stood at Landing Ridge, the same place we’d landed in Jason’s chariot earlier today. There were many options available to get from Skyland down to the valley floor 2,000 feet below: magic carpets, the Levitator (a big floating hunk of rock large enough for 500 people if you crammed them together), the city’s brigade of public flying elephants (they looked like regular elephants, not Elephantum, and I could smell them from 100 yards away), other flying animals, and rental hang gliders. The choice was obvious. Who didn’t want to hang glide?

  “You crazy?” Ty said. “You gonna kill yourself ’less your pilot skill is level 5.”

  “Do they have tandem?” I asked. “Or parachutes?”

  Everybody stared at me dubiously.

  “Come on, Dad! You yourself told me you always wanted to hang glide when you were my age but you couldn’t afford it. Don’t they have some kind of magical autopilot on these things?”

  Over a dozen hang gliders were laid out in rows. I walked from one to the next. They clearly came in varying levels of quality. The cheap leather, rope, and wood ones apparently had no magic and were meant for experts. “What about this one?” I pointed to one with a metal frame that had all the cables and control bars but no sail. It looked expensive. Maybe they kept the sail inside the shed. “Are there any prices on these things?” I looked around for the clerk. “Do you guys see salesman anywhere?”

  Qoorie glanced inside the shady shed where all the gear was stored, shielding her eyes from the afternoon soon. “Nope. Nobody in here.”

  “SCREE!!”

  We all turned and saw a gigantic flying beast soar down from a tall wooden post that had a sizable platform and nest on top.

  I thought it was a harpy, so I yanked my sword out of my scabbard, ready to start stabbing and slashing.

  “Ease up, Logan,” Ty said, excited. “It just a Hawken. One a the unified races. These dudes are the shit! I almost picked Hawken when I made my character.”

  My heart was racing and I kept my sword at the ready, just in case.

  Hawken Merchant

  Level: 11

  Health | Stamina: 475 | 920

  Mana | Mind: 0 | 420

  Size: Medium

  Armor: 80

  ===============

  Good | Evil: 40 | 66

  Law | Chaos: 21 | 89

  ===============

  Interesting. His Health wasn’t that high, but he had a ton of Stamina. Probably for all the flying he did? Had a lot of Mind, too. Probably because he was a good business man.

  The human sized bird man landed with a flourish of his wings. Oops. Make that a bird woman. She had a beak and the piercing eyes all hawks had, but she had boobs and great hips under her downy under-feathers. Unlike the harpies, who had arms, legs, and separate wings, the Hawken’s wings were part of her arms. Also unlike the harpies, she wore clothing. A leather skirt and belt with about 20 throwing knives in scabbards, and a leather harness with lots of empty hooks. My first thought was the hooks were for hand grenades. Did they have magic hand grenades in RO? After that Chaos Agent attacked us in the streets earlier, my guess would be yes.

  “Heeeeey, honey,” she said to me lazily. “You wanna rent a flier?” The way she said it sounded more like she was saying, Are you interested in taking me home for the night? But she hadn’t said that.

  I shook my head.

  She was pushing me.

  Made perfect sense with that 420 mind of hers.

  I chuckled to myself. 4:20. Universal herb time.

  She may have been playing at being casual, but I could tell this girl was all sell. I wasn’t falling for it. Women at work flirted with me all the time trying to score free drinks. I could smell a user from a mile away.

  You have unlocked a Mental Power! Resist Charm. Level 1. Here’s a shovel, lady. Go dig for gold somewhere else. Increase your Willpower to improve your chance of success.

  +1 to Willpower!

  Nice.

  The Hawken batted her yellow hawk eyes at me. She didn’t have much in the way of lashes, but I could feel her trying to push her flirt on me. She said breathily, “If you rent one of my fliers, I’ll take you for a free flying lesson. Just you and me, honey…”

  I ignored her flirt and said, “Gotta rent one first, babe. How much if we wanna take one of these babies out for a nice slow glide?” Yeah, I said it like I was bargaining with a hooker, but it was just business for me. I pushed some of my own flirt energy back at her.

  Layna said with obvious impatience, “We should take the Levitator.” She sounded jealous.

  I said to the hawk girl, “What’s your name, babe?” I pushed again with my flirtation power, but harder this time.

  Her
eyes flared. She felt it. “Phoenix. What’s your name, player?”

  “Call me Logan.” I pushed again.

  “Mmmm, honey. I know what you’re doing.”

  “Do you?” I flirted.

  “Mmmm. Keep doing it. You can do it all night long if you want.” She shifted her weight onto one taloned leg and ran her palms down her feminine hips

  This wasn’t working out the way I’d planned. I just wanted to rent some gliders. Maybe I’d used too many Mind points and pushed too hard. Oops.

  “I’m taking the Levitator!” Layna huffed. “Come on, Qoorie.”

  Qoorie glared at me before turning to follow Layna. She stopped and grumbled, “Tyyyyyyyy…” It was an order and a warning that he better follow.

  Ty rolled his head and sighed, “All right, bae.” To me, he muttered, “Sorry, dawg. Duty calls.”

  Dad grinned at me, laughter in his eyes.

  Phoenix was smart enough to see she was losing 5 sales. “You don’t wanna take the Levitator.” She was hollering at Layna. “It’s real slow and only runs once every 90 minutes, and that’s one way. You could be stuck waiting 3 hours if you miss it. What you wanna do is rent one of my fliers. Glide down to the valley floor as fast as you like. Fly back up in 10 minutes.”

  Layna stopped, considering it.

  I asked Phoenix, “Do the fliers stay in the valley until we fly back?”

  “No. They return automatically. You wear an amulet I’ll give you. You can call your flier back down whenever you want. Takes about 5 minutes to arrive.”

  “Nice. Can somebody with no piloting skills fly them?”

  “Of course.”

  I gave Dad a look.

  He said, “Sounds interesting. I’ll bite.”

  Phoenix said to everyone, “You won’t get service like that, or the flying experience, from that boring old Levitator. I’ll give all y’all a discount if you rent 5 for the day.”

  Layna said. “How much?”

  “For 5 fliers? Hmmmm, maybe 500 gold?”

  “100,” Layna said shrewdly.

  “250,” Phoenix countered.

  “75,” Layna barked.

  “The Levitator is 25 a head. You’ll pay 125, and they don’t haggle. 200.”

  “126,” Layna scowled, clearly hating Phoenix.

  “You don’t have to be like that,” Phoenix sighed, offended but hiding it. “175.”

  By the way, I was loving watching them fight over me.

  “150,” Layna said firmly. “That’s our final offer.”

  Who put Layna in charge?

  Phoenix stared at her. She threw up her feathered arms. “Fine! 150 for the five of y’all.” Under her breath she muttered to me, “That bitch of yours is a bandit, honey. I hope she’s worth it.”

  “She’s not mine,” I chuckled.

  Phoenix’s eyes flashed again and she pushed, “Well now… that mean you’re on the market? Maybe you wanna stay up here with me in my nest while your friends fly down to the valley? Smoke a little Kangan leaf, if you’re into that?”

  I knew it. This bird was 4:20 friendly. And it was getting close to that time.

  “Uhhhh…” I laughed nervously, trying to stay focused.

  “I heard that,” Layna barked. “The Levitator is leaving in 10 minutes. If we hurry, we can make it.” She started walking.

  “Layna,” I said, “Come back. We don’t have time to wait around for the Levitator if we miss it.”

  “Why not? Are you in a rush to return your flier?” She spat the words, really saying, Are you in a rush to see Phoenix again?

  I rolled my eyes, thinking only of Emily. If Jason found something, we needed to move fast, not wait around 3 hours for a levitating elevator. “Please, Layna. Let’s just rent the fliers.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “I hope you have 150 gold.”

  Shit. I had zero gold. “Dad?”

  “You broke, son?” he chuckled.

  “It’s just a loan. I’ll pay you back.”

  Dad pulled a small sack of coins out of a belt pouch.

  Layna rolled her eyes and huffed audibly.

  Fifteen minutes later, the group of us stood on the edge of the Floating City with our glider frames, but no sails.

  “How far down is it?” I asked, swallowing hard.

  “Maybe half a mile?” Phoenix said uncertainly. She didn’t worry about these things. She was a fricking bird.

  “And how do we fly the gliders?”

  “Lean forward to go down, back to go up, left to go left, right to go right.”

  Ty said, “Sound like basic flight controls to me.”

  Phoenix shrugged, “I wouldn’t know.” She’d been irritated ever since Dad paid her. Probably had nothing to do with the fact that Layna was glaring at her constantly while being difficult. “Everybody press the gemstone on your amulet to activate the sail.”

  We all wore them around our necks. I pressed mine

  WHOMP! Bzzzzzzzzzzz…

  A glowing sky-blue sail materialized around the metal frame, looking very much like a sport hang glider but with a frame crafted by a goldsmith or silversmith. The sail flickered and emitted a faint buzz that reminded me of a UV insect zapper.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Run and jump,” Phoenix said. “Simple as that.”

  I looked at Ty, “What happens if we die in this game?”

  “You re-spawn. It’s like this: if you level 1, you re-spawn in a safe area inside a one mile radius a where you was 2 hours prior with all your gear, to prevent spawn camping. Higher the level, bigger the radius. If you level 10, you re-spawn inside a 10 mile radius and maybe lose some gear, and you ain’t in no safe zone. The higher level you get, the bigger the radius. Could be 20, 30, 50 miles, whatever.”

  “Okay, so we come back to life?”

  Ty smiled, “Yeah, dawg.”

  Fuck it. This was totally worth it. With a frightened war cry, I ran toward the edge and jumped.

  “Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!”

  That was my war cry as I dropped over the edge and sailed clear of Landing Ridge. I could see the mountain valley 2000 feet below. Magically, I felt my legs lifted up like I was harnessed in a regular hang glider. I leaned forward and the flier picked up speed. Faintly behind me, I heard shouts of fear and joy from everyone else.

  It didn’t take long to get the hang of steering, probably thanks to the magic. That’s when I noticed my amulet, which was glowing, was also dangling in the air from my neck. Something told me if it fell off, the flier would stop working and I’d plummet like a human rock. I hastily stuffed the amulet under my Fencer’s jacket and felt much better when it was tucked safely away.

  “Look out, dawg!” Ty hollered as he swooped by me at high speed, only 20 feet below.

  Laughter followed as Dad raced after him.

  I banked hard and dove, trying to catch up.

  The three of us blew through a low flying cloud and shot out the other side, Ty in the lead. Qoorie and Layna were right on my tail, laughing and giggling and enjoying flying as much as the men.

  It was like this for about 10 minutes, all of us having the time of our lives.

  We spotted a large grassy clearing down in the valley. Through hand signals, we decided to land there. One by one, we all descended. I felt the magic harness disappear and my legs dropped as I came down for a landing. Without my doing it, the flier’s nose rose sharply and flared, slowing me suddenly. I ran with my legs as my boots touched down.

  When I slowed to a stop, I was laughing like crazy.

  Dad came down right after me, also laughing. “What a rush! That was incredible!”

  I almost shouted, You can’t do that in D&D! But saying that would’ve made Dad think about Mom. We were having too much fun and I didn’t want to be a downer.

  Everyone else touched down without incident and we gathered together, our fliers all resting in the knee-high grass.

  “How do we send them back?” Qoori
e asked.

  “Maybe they do it themselves?” Dad suggested.

  Sure enough, when we’d walked about 50 yards away, they all took off and zipped back up to Skyland.

  “So,” I said, “how do we find the quest Jason assigned us?”

  “Lemme check my map,” Dad said. He was clearly accessing a menu and viewing a status window only he could see. “It’s this way. To the north. There’s a hotspot of activity on the map. I can’t tell how many mobs there are, but it’s more than a few.”

  “Mobs? How big is a mob? Isn’t a mob like a hundred people? And how many is a few? Is that like 300 people?” I was picturing an army of armored Orken with their rusty swords at the ready.

  Ty and Dad spoke at the exact same time, “A mob is—” They both stopped and laughed.

  “Jinx,” Ty said. “You tell him.”

  “Okay,” Dad chuckled. “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Go for it.”

  Dad said, “Mob is short for mobile. It’s an AIPC controlled by the game core.”

  I almost gave him shit for not calling them monsters like we did in the old days. But again, Mom. So I deflected my feelings with a joke, “Dad, when did you turn into such a nerd?”

  He laughed. “Blame Jason. He always says mob when we’re back home at my apartment talking about RO. Guess I just picked up on it.”

  “Right.” As much as I hated to admit it, it was entirely possible Jason was spending way more quality time with Dad than I was, thanks to Reternity Online. Maybe I needed to spend more time here with Dad after we found Emily. No, no way. As soon as we found her, I was done with this place. Dad and I could play D&D the old fashioned way and I would date real women, not a fake ape like Layna.

  While the group of us walked, I said to Dad, “You have a chance to ride in Jason’s chariot? The one pulled by dragons?”

  “I have. It’s damn impressive. But nowhere near as much fun as those fliers.”

  “I hear that,” I smiled.

  “I wonder why he didn’t offer to take us down here himself?”

  “He’s probably busy being King of the Law or whatever he is,” I chuckled, trying to keep it light. Now didn’t seem like the right time to tell Dad about Emily.