by Shawn Wyatt
Perla Online
Book Two: Shella
by Shawn Wyatt
Author's Note
Thanks for purchasing! Your support helps small authors like me continue to write stories like this one. If you enjoyed the story, please leave a review on Amazon. Reviews are one of the number one things you can do to help you favorite authors sell more books.
I've loved pirates for as long as I can remember (but if we're being honest, it's probably tied to playing with the Lego Pirate sets as a kid.) Incorporating them into a swashbuckling, seafaring adventure like Shella just made sense.
I want to give a quick thanks to my friends and family for their support throughout the creation of this novel. Their feedback has been invaluable.
In the back of this book you will find a list of character abilities from levels 20 to 30, as well as Ren's final stats at the last chapter.
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Shawn
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Preview
I caught no more than a glimpse of the tentacle before it slammed into my side. The blow launched me into the air, sky and ship blurring together before the deck rose to meet me.
The impact drove the air from my lungs. I fought for oxygen, but my lungs refused to cooperate. I groaned in pain and glanced at my HP bar. It flashed an ominous yellow—over half my hit points gone.
Bastion grabbed the back of my shirt and dragged me behind a pile of barrels. "I've got you," he said. The Prophet of Truth gave me a once-over for more serious injures before he breathed a sigh of relief. "You just need to catch your breath."
I shook my head and pointed toward my chest. My ribs felt like someone had taken a warhammer to them. Bastion frowned, placed a hand on my chest, and a second later golden healing energy bloomed over me. My HP bar crept back, point by point, and I drew the sweetest breath I'd ever drawn.
"That freaking hurt," I said.
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Shella
Chapter Two: Quinn
Chapter Three: Tarawi
Chapter Four: Clint Eastwood
Chapter Five: Armorcraft
Chapter Six: Nails
Chapter Seven: The Pirate King
Chapter Eight: Arciteuthis
Chapter Nine: Privateer's Fall
Chapter Ten: The Walls That Bind
Chapter Eleven: Onward
Chapter Twelve: Fenua
Chapter Thirteen: Hunted
Chapter Fourteen: Napari
Chapter Fifteen: Water Elementals
Chapter Sixteen: Siren Song
Chapter Seventeen: Correspondence
Chapter Eighteen: Old Friends
Chapter Nineteen: Alternative Weapons
Chapter Twenty: The Twin Turtles
Chapter Twenty One: Tempest
Chapter Twenty Two: Showdown
Chapter Twenty Three: Countershot
Chapter Twenty Four: Appeal
Chapter Twenty Five: Loremaster
Chapter Twenty Six: Tuvalu
Chapter Twenty Seven: Golem
Chapter Twenty Eight: Riches
Chapter Twenty Nine: Rakshasa
Chapter Thirty: The Jungle
Chapter Thirty One: King Lizard
Chapter Thirty Two: The Tempest Bow
Chapter Thirty Three: Kiribati
Chapter Thirty Four: The Barrier
Chapter Thirty Five: The Drowned
Chapter Thirty Six: The Sunken Labyrinth
Chapter Thirty Seven: The Leviathan
Chapter Thirty Eight: Kalia
Chapter Thirty Nine: Victory
Chapter One: Shella
“This was your idea, you know. Let’s go to another realm, you said. We’ll get stronger and beat the game, you said.”
Evey sat astride Boris as the bear tread water in the middle of the ocean. The airship, a mechanism of bronze gears and copper pipes that clanked and hissed with steam, had carried us into the skies above Toris. Its sails had dropped to the sides and filled with power as it cut through the void between realms.
And then it sank within minutes of touching down in the waters of Shella. I had watched it disappear into the murky depths below, leaving us with no place to rest.
And with land nowhere in sight.
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “This was not exactly what I had in mind.”
I floated. Bastion floated. Wish floated. No one was happy.
“Do you have any idea where to go now?” Evey asked. “We don’t even have a map of this world. And we although haven’t tested it, I’m pretty sure we can drown.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “We could just pick a direction and start swimming, but that doesn’t mean we’ll find land. Or people. This world looked like it was mostly water. But the airship has to land on a predefined path, right?”
“Right. Unless it’s just as glitched as everything else, given how this game has been so far.” Evey huffed, annoyance plastered on her face. “Were we even supposed to be on this realm?”
She had a good point. The raid boss Azelbub had prevented travel off Toris. After we defeated him, the game should have let us pick the next realm. In theory, anyway.
We had not been given an option. The Treant that controlled the airship landing hurled us into the sky like a paper airplane, and we landed here.
Not the most ideal situation by a long shot.
Wish floated on her back and moved in lazy circles. “Does anyone have a fatigue bar?”
“What?” I asked.
“A fatigue bar. You know, like when you go beyond the borders in a game?” She shook her head. “I thought you all were gamers. It’s a way of forcing you to stay within a certain area. Go too far, you die. Eventually.”
I focused on the HP bars, mana gauges, and other data displayed at the edge of my vision. After months in this world, I had grown used to seeing it there. No new bars had appeared. “Not that I can see.”
“Me either,” Bastion agreed.
“Okay,” Wish said. “Then we just float here until help arrives. Right?”
Evey sighed again and laid her head against Boris’ neck. “I really, really hate the ocean,” she said.
Shella was one of Perla’s five realms and consisted of almost nothing but water. Huge, unending, unforgiving expanses of water. Islands dotted the surface, but we hadn’t had the good fortune of landing anywhere near one of those islands.
“At least you’re dry,” I said. I relaxed and let the waves support me. In a different context, this situation would be peaceful. Wisps of white, cotton-candy clouds plastered a sky a shade or two lighter than the ocean below us.
An unbroken calm lay over the surface of the water. The lack of wind made it easy to tread water and float but did little to alleviate the harsh sunlight. The water kept us cool, but on land this realm would be uncomfortably warm.
“What’s that?” Bastion said. He raised a hand out of the waves, his robes heavy with the weight of the water. “Over there.”
I followed where he pointed. A silhouette cut across the surface of the waves, headed in our direction. As it neared, the shape resol
ved into a caravel, the sails flush with wind. Someone stood on the bow and waved.
I opened my mouth to caution the party, but all three had already begun to wave. Help had arrived.
The ship slowed as it approached. A man leapt from the raised bow of the ship to the deck and threw a rope ladder off the starboard side. “Looks like you folks could use some help,” he said, the words tinged with a heavy Australian accent. “How long have you been floating out here?”
“Hours,” Evey said. “I lost count of how many.” She grabbed the rungs of the ladder and pulled herself up.
The man extended a hand to help. “Then it’s a pleasure to be of service, ma’am,” he said, a grin spread across his face. “Name’s Quinn.”
“I’m Evey,” she said. “This is Boris.” The bear scrambled up the ladder onto the deck and flopped onto solid wood with a huff. The ship tilted under his weight.
Quinn looked at Boris with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. “Might want to keep him centered on the deck,” he said. He turned to Bastion. “Come on, up with you, mate.”
He pulled the Prophet of Truth aboard, then Wish, and finally myself. I held out a hand. “Thanks for the help,” I said. “I’m Ren.”
“Like I told your pretty friend here, I’m Quinn. It’s a pleasure.”
I quirked an eyebrow and glanced at Evey, but she only shook her head.
While Bastion and Wish introduced themselves, I took a closer look at our rescuer. Sharp-pointed rapiers, each a hair under three feet long, hung from his waist. A tricorn hat with a feather thrust into the brim decorated his head, but he wore the clothes of a minstrel.
“You’re a Harmonist, right? Swashbuckler?” I asked.
“Aye, mate. Good eye. Welcome aboard my ship. Her name's Betsy." He grinned and swept an arm toward the deck. "Not safe to go for a swim out here. It’s a good thing I found you before the pirates did.”
Quinn found towels in the ship's storage and tossed them to us. "I figure you folks meant to go to Tarawi." He spun the helm and brought the ship around. "This heading will take us there."
“You said pirates are out here, but aren’t you a pirate yourself?”
Quinn shrugged. “Yeah, but I’m one of the good ones.”
“Good pirates?” Wish asked. “Do those exist?”
“They do here,” he said. “And I should know.” He shot Evey a wink.
She leaned over and whispered to me. “I think this guy has taken the roleplaying experience a bit too far,” she said. “He might be missing a few stat points in Intellect, if you know what I mean.”
I laughed. “It seems he likes you,” I said. “And he rescued us. Be nice.”
“No promises,” Evey said.
I turned back to the Swashbuckler. “So what do you mean about the pirates?”
“There’s a Pirate Guild here. They don’t have any official name that I know of. In fact, the whole lot started out as NPCs. There are still a lot of NPCs in the guild, but a few players took it upon themselves to infiltrate the guild and take it over. You know how pirates get promoted, right?”
I shook my head. “Afraid not.”
Quinn gave a short laugh. “They don’t. Someone takes over when the previous captain dies. These players carved their way through the guild until they controlled it. Now the guild is better run that it ever was before, and these pirates make their way around the realm and steal loot from anyone they encounter. You have to be careful out here on your own.”
"But you're alone," I pointed out.
“Betsy is fast,” Quinn said. “Me, I can outrun their galleons. As long as they don’t land a shot on me and sink the ship, I’m good as gold.”
I thought for a moment. "And if you don't have a ship? What then?"
"You need one," Quinn said.
"And there's no way to travel without a ship?"
“Well. You could, I suppose, but it would be expensive. You’d have to hire transportation anytime you wanted to go anywhere.”
An idea had begun to form in my mind. I grinned. "So you take it upon yourself to sail the seas on your own without so much as a single crew member. You brag about outrunning pirates. I think I know who you are."
Quinn raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
"You're a smuggler," I said. At his look of shock, my grin grew. "I knew it. But this chance landing might be beneficial after all. Want to help us out? We came here on a quest, but we don’t have a ship. And as you’ve seen, we have no idea about the layout of this realm. I haven’t even seen a map of Shella yet. We need someone that will take us around.”
Quinn reached up and scratched the back of his head. “Maybe,” he said. I noticed the flash of light on the rings on his fingers, and I wondered how much equipment this player actually had—and how much of it was for show. “I’ll make a deal with you. There’s a dungeon I want to clear out, but I can’t do it alone. You help me do that, and I’ll ferry you around this realm.”
I looked to the rest of the party, and they all nodded. “It’s a deal,” I said.
We all grew quiet for a few minutes, and I listened to the sound of the waves as they slammed into the ship. Quinn cleared his throat. “There’s one thing I’ve been meaning to ask,” he said. “Where exactly did you folks come from?”
I laughed. “Toris, the forest realm.”
I thought his eyebrows might crawl up into his hairline. “You came from another realm?”
I nodded. “Yeah, except the airship didn’t exactly land where it was supposed to. It’s sitting somewhere at the bottom of the ocean right about now.”
“You’ve got to tell me what it’s like!” Quinn leaned forward, excitement written in every line on his face. “I’ve been on this realm since this game started. Been stuck here the whole time.”
I explained the events on Toris. Quinn took a particular interest in the final raid battle, and nodded at the mention of the Withering.
“I’ve seen a few of those myself,” he said. “Sea monsters and the like. People call it 'void water.' Patches of ocean that look black, almost solid, but contain all kinds of nasty critters. Algae that burn through the hull of a ship in seconds, sea monsters that drag you down to the bottom, that sort of thing.”
I glanced at Evey. “That sounds like what we dealt with on Toris.”
“So that’s your plan?” Quinn asked. “To kill this stuff?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Kill the Withered monsters. Snuff out the source. And then move on to another realm, until we can get to the Foscor. And then home."
He winced at the mention of the necromancer. “And then what? This guy trapped us all in the game world. You really think you’ll be able to convince him to free you?”
I shrugged. “I just plan to shoot him,” I said. “Perla Online is a game. It follows certain rules. They don’t always make sense, but the basis is this. If we beat the game, we get to go home to our families. To the people we love.”
Before Quinn could respond, a low growl from Boris cut him off. The bear stood and stared out at the waves. Evey put a hand on his back and followed his gaze. "We may have a problem," she said.
Quinn stood and ran to the helm, taking the stairs two at a time. I followed on his heels. A huge galleon floated on the horizon. Four masts supported dozens of sails with the Jolly Roger emblazoned on the fabric. Its bow turned toward us.
“Time to go,” Quinn said. “Hang on, folks.” He grabbed a rope and tugged hard. Sails swung around and filled with wind, and I fought to stand as the ship jumped through the waves and turned perpendicular to the larger vessel.
A crack sounded in the distance, and cannonballs landed where we had been moments before.
Quinn let out a whoop. “They'll never catch Betsy!”
I had to admit, the ship was fast. The galleon shrank in size as the wind carried our smaller ship over the waves at a rate the heavier vessel could never hope to match.
Evey looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “He actuall
y named his ship Betsy?”
I shrugged and looked at the Quinn, who now stood with one foot on the figurehead of the ship and an eyeglass to his face.
A pirate, a bear, a Marauder, a Prophet, an Invoker, and a Beast Tamer. This realm would be anything but boring.
Chapter Two: Quinn
In a few hours, a pinprick appeared on the horizon. Over the next half-hour that same pinprick grew until it blocked the sky, but something seemed off about the island. We should have already reached it at our speed, I thought. But as the ship closed the distance to the island, I understood why.
The island was not an island.
A mottled shell rose from the white-capped ocean. Quinn spun the helm and the ship changed direction moments before a flipper the size of a runway breached the waves. My jaw grew slack, and I turned to the rest of my party. They all shared my expression, and Quinn let out a short laugh. "She's impressive, no? Say hello to Tarawi, one of the Five Great Turtles of Shella."
A city rose atop the shell, separated into different tiers. At the lowest level, where the turtle’s shell met the water, a white sand beach ran along a shore, if I could call it that. Fishermen trailed their lines off the back of the turtle and waved when they us. My jaw moved, but I struggled to form words. “How?”
Quinn shrugged. “The turtles allow the cities to be built on their backs. Tarawi is the first of the five. Well, the one closest to where you landed, anyway. The others are still quite a distance away, but they move at such a slow speed that you can catch them with a fast ship. A single swim around the realm constitutes one year here, or so I’m told.”
“Are they all the same size?”
“No, actually. Tarawi is the fourth smallest. The only turtle smaller than her is Rawaki.” Quinn laughed. “The turtles and cities share a name, so it can be a bit confusing at times.”
I stared in awe at the mountain-sized turtle and fought to wrap my mind around her size. Less than a day in this new realm and already it surprised me. Evey leaned over the side of the ship and stared, her eyes wide with amazement. “She’s beautiful,” Evey said.