Perla Online, Book Two: Shella (A LitRPG/GameLit Adventure)

by Shawn Wyatt

  They had moved when she did, but stopped short. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

  Scarlet pulled herself to her feet. She pressed a hand to her wound and struggled to stand. Her HP had dropped by a fifth, and I knew she suffered a painful debuff. “I understand now," she snarled. "You think you're better than we are because you're stronger. You think you can bully us. Push us around."

  I felt another surge of anger. "What?"

  “You take what you want, pushing those weaker than you to the ground. You stomp all over them and taunt them with your strength.” She stood up straight and drew her pistol. “I won’t let that exist in this world.”

  The confusion must have been plain on my face. “What the devil are you talking about? You’re a pirate. You define oppression.”

  “Pirates define freedom, you fool. They fought against monarchies and restrictive kingdoms. They defied class systems.” Scarlet pulled the hammer back on her flintlock. She would only get one shot. She had to know that. “I swore—swore—that I would not let that happen to me here.”

  “You’re delusional.” I shook my head. "You can't oppress NPCs and players because they might grow stronger than you. You need to work with them to get out of here. A violent power fantasy like the one you're living out can't last."

  “Work together. Right. That’s what everyone says when it suits them. You’re lying. The moment you don’t need someone, you’ll drop them without any notice.” Scarlet's hands trembled.

  Her responses were out of place. Her eyes had a far-off look. She had mentioned before that some people preferred Perla Online to the real world, but I realized now she meant herself. In this world, she was strong.

  But now she relived a painful memory. Maybe a schoolyard bully or an abusive relationship. She wanted payback on the people that caused her pain. And she saw me as the personification of those people. And she had a gun.

  I activated Countershot. The bullet exploded from her flintlock, and even at one-sixteenth speed, it moved too fast. I yielded control of my arm to the game's aim assist system. My arm snapped up and my finger squeezed the trigger. Our bullets met in midair and broke apart.

  She watched her bullet explode in the air in front of her and hung her head. Defeat had etched itself into every feature, but a fierce determination still burned on her face. “You can try to take my ship and my crew, but I will fight until my last breath."

  “Would you shut up and listen to me?” I snapped. Scarlet reeled back and looked at me like I'd doused her in cold water. “I don’t want your crew. I don’t want your ship. I want your help.”

  “My help?"

  “Your help,” I repeated. “Let me prove that to you. Have your men lower their weapons so we can talk."

  "I won’t give them the order until you explain.”

  I sighed. “Fine. But you might want to get comfortable. It’s a bit of a long story.” I filled her in on what had happened since the beginning of the game. I told her about the fight to make allies on Toris and about the final raid group to take down Azelbub. I explained how crashed here, and how players even now fought to keep Toris free of the corruption. “I don’t want gold, or power outside of what I need to defeat Foscor and get out of this world,” I said.

  Scarlet eyed me with suspicion and considered the story. One of the men beside her stepped forward—the Invoker from before. “I believe him, boss. And that’s not too far from what you want to do, is it?”

  Scarlet turned to her crew and spoke in a low voice. The men nodded. Finally, she turned to me and held a hand in the air. The men sheathed their swords and holstered their pistols. "Let's talk," she said. "What exactly do you want my help with?"

  Chapter Twenty Four: Appeal

  I sat in a chair carved of driftwood. Scarlet sat across from me. A sturdy wooden desk lay between us. I looked around the room—her quarters—and at the shelves laden with books of all shapes and sizes. She had an impressive number of texts on the lore of the different realms, and an equal number of books on different weapons and fighting styles.

  My eyes fell on one volume in particular: The Way of the Duelist, a Primer on Advanced Marauder Techniques. If this partnership became a bit more friendly, I would have to ask to borrow that. Scarlet crossed her legs and steepled her fingers together. “Well? You said you needed my help?”

  "I do. But even if you don't need to step in, there's always strength in numbers." She quirked her eyebrow, any trace of her earlier defeat gone from her face. Scarlet’s closest crew members stood in the room, their postures tense, their hands not far from their weapon hilts. “When we fought the Waldgeist, we had a twenty-man raid group. An overwhelming force, and we still almost lost. I don't know what kind of enemy we'll find here, but it's dangerous enough that the Great Turtles have sealed it away.”

  Scarlet’s brow furrowed. “I know the place. It's the only spot on Shella sealed behind magical barriers. The Pirate King stood and strode across the room to a map that hung from the wall and pinned a location with her finger. “Here. The Sunken Labyrinth.”

  Not an ominous name at all, I thought. “What can you tell us about it?”

  “Not much. The barriers have been there since I woke up on Shella. Rumors say its full of plunders and riches. The last leader of the pirates was quite enamored with the idea of getting inside the Labyrinth.” She leveled a glare at me. “Why do you think you can gain access if no one else has been able to?”

  I accessed my active quests and shared it with Scarlet so she could read the details. Her eyes widened in surprise.

  “The Great Turtles gave you a quest to defeat the corruption?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “I kind of asked them for it. My friends and I came to this realm with the express purpose of defeating the corruption here. And once we finish here, we will move on to the next realm, and then the one after that.”

  “So you weren’t making a joke in poor taste earlier. You actually do intend to defeat Foscor.” Scarlet sighed and cast a glance out the porthole of her quarters. “Do you really think you’ll be able to do that?”

  “I do," I said. "My part is strong. Our lowest level member is 24. By the time we clear out the rest of the realms? We’ll be max level. But even if I fail, I would rather die fighting than wait until someone decides to unplug us all.” Several guards shifted their eyes away. “No matter how real this world feels, it’s not our home.”

  Scarlet laughed. “You’re naive. You talk like some sort of hero of legend, but have you thought about the people that prefer it here? Those that would rather live here than return to whatever they had before?” She gestured toward the door. “Several of the men in my crew were miserable in real life. Depressed. Stuck in dead-end jobs with no hope of advancement and buried under crushing debt. Here, they’re free.”

  “That freedom is an illusion,” I said.

  “Is it? It seems that here we hurt, we hunger, we bleed, and we love as intensely as any of us did back on Earth. And you may not realize it, but my crew is completely human. No NPCs.”

  I struggled to keep my expression neutral. How had Scarlet managed to recruit so many players to her cause? The Spellweaver said she promised safety and power. I'd seen players cope in less-than-productive ways on Toris. If Scarlet offered them a feeling of security, it might be too tempting to ignore. “And have you asked them if they want to go home?”

  “Some do,” she said, her words accompanied by an easy shrug. “And I don’t fault them for that. But I also don’t think you should destroy this world and steal that choice from them.”

  “I don’t want to destroy this world.” I thought of Cathbad and the denizens of the Sacred Grove. I thought of the Great Turtles. This world might not be my home, but it was theirs—and they had proven themselves as real as any human I'd ever met. “I want to save it.”

  “And you’ll give them a choice at the end to remain in this world or go back to the real one?” Scarlet pinned me with the same fiery emerald gaze, her
question demanding an answer.

  “I can't make any choice for them,” I said. “But I want to make sure they have a choice."

  She pondered my words for a moment, then nodded. “Alright. I’ll help you. But there are still a few details to work out.” Avarice flashed in her eyes. “For those that want to stay behind once you clear this game, we need to talk about loot distribution."

  We spent hours hashing out loot rights, party composition, and other details. Scarlet had a well-rounded crew. Her ships looked like nothing more than pirate crews, but each held healers, tanks, and DPS like any normal party.

  ***

  I stood on the deck and listed to the pirates drink and laugh. Tuvalu loomed in the distance. Without guns and cannons pointed my way, the atmosphere seemed almost peaceful.

  I glanced over the taffrail. Rune leaned against the mast, his arms crossed and head cocked to the side, a smirk on his face. Quinn argued with a woman in pirate’s clothing. The waves and wind stole away their words, but the Swashbuckler’s body language told me all I needed to know.

  Whatever the conversation, it was not pleasant. Quinn gestured and pointed at the Privateer’s Fall, but the woman only shrugged. She looked almost apologetic, but stood defiant in the face of his fury. Quinn stalked away from the woman and to the rope. Rune held up his hands and stepped in front of the Swashbuckler, but Quinn pushed him out of the way.

  I watched him climb hand over hand with surprising speed until he hauled himself onto the deck. Quinn glanced at me. “Where is Scarlet?” He bit the words out.

  “In her cabin,” I said. He nodded and surged past me, but I caught him by the arm. “This is a very tenuous partnership," I warned. "Don't blow it with your temper. What's going on?"

  He glared at me. “Let get of me if you want to keep that hand.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. I dropped a hand to my revolver. “Not when you’re this angry. Now tell me who that woman is.”

  Quinn threw his hands up. "I wish I knew. That's a question I would love to answer myself."

  "What are you talking about?"

  “Remember when you agreed to help me find my friend, the one Scarlet had taken hostage? Well, congratulations. You kept your word. We found her.”

  I blinked in surprise and turned toward the woman below. She stared up the rope with an exasperated expression on her face. “That’s her? That’s your friend?”

  “That’s her,” Quinn said.

  “So why is she wearing the same livery as Scarlet?”

  “As it turns out, she’s one of her crew. And the whole thing was a ploy from the start to get me to bring you to Scarlet.” Quinn’s face fell. “She played me, Ren. Scarlet knew the routes I stuck to, knew where you would land, and calculated all of this to make our paths cross at the right time.”

  The Swashbuckler stared at me, waiting on a response. Any response. But something in his words had left me cold. “You said she knew where we would land.”

  “What of it?” Anger suffused his tone, but I ignored it.

  “No one knew where we were going to land. I didn't even know if the airship went to the right location. There was no inter-realm travel or communication. So how did Scarlet know what to look for or where we were coming from?” Suddenly, her obsessive interest in Toris raised a lot of questions.

  Quinn started to speak, but stopped short as my words penetrated his anger. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he said.

  I pulled him aside, away from the curious ears of Scarlet’s crew. “There are two options that I can see,” I said. The possibilities raced through my mind. I hoped I was wrong. “The first is that she's working for Foscor and he feeds her information no one else should know. If that’s the case, I'll let you skewer her."

  “And the second?”

  “She has a source she hasn’t told us about. Either way, why don’t we go find out what exactly is going on?”

  A wicked grin settled on Quinn’s face. “Aye. I hope it’s the first.”

  I turned and flung open the door to Scarlet’s cabin. She still pored over the map in her quarters with Bastion. Evey stood off to the side, her arms crossed in front of her. She raised an eyebrow at my entrance. I gave a soft shake of my head. Evey straightened and dropped a hand close to her dagger.

  “Scarlet. We need to talk.”

  The Pirate King turned. “Yes?” At the expression on my face, her brow furrowed. “Is there a problem?”

  Quinn clenched a fist. “Of course there’s a problem, you—”

  “Shut up, Quinn.” I cut off the Swashbuckler before he could finish his sentence. “It seems there's something you aren't telling us. And here I thought we had made so much progress.”

  “And tell me exactly what it is I haven’t been honest about. I’ve answered every question you had,” Scarlet said.

  “Answered our questions, yes. But you didn’t tell us why you wanted to know certain things. I wondered why you were so interested in Toris and the other realms, but I chalked it up to natural curiosity. But there’s someone telling you about what’s happening on those realms, isn’t there? How else could you have known my party and I were on the way here?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Ren. What makes you think I knew you were on the way?”

  I glanced at Quinn. He wasted no time jumping into the conversation. “Chrystal told me all about the ploy. Meet me, seduce me, and then 'convince' me of some loot somewhere around Tarawi. Put me in the perfect place to rescue a group of crashed travelers." He shook with anger. “She never said how she knew about the loot."

  Scarlet’s face remained impassive. “And you honestly believe something that ridiculous?”

  “Cut the crap,” I said. “How did you know anyone would be moving between realms? Tell me the truth: are you working with Foscor?”

  “Stupid girl,” Scarlet said. She shook her head and sighed. “I never thought she would actually become emotionally involved with you, Quinn. I mistook you for another idiot player. I didn’t think you had any amount of charm underneath all that bravado. And no, Ren, I’m not working with Foscor.” She turned a withering gaze toward me. “Let me show you.”

  Scarlet reached into her tunic and pulled out a small, bronze tube adorned with symbols. A black cap fit over one end. She tapped a button on the side of the tube, and several of the symbols along its length began to glow.

  A soft blue light surrounded the tube, and in seconds it had tripled in length. She held it out to me. “Take it outside and look through it. Point it at any realm.”

  The tube was cool to the touch. "What is this?"

  "Look and see."

  The sun hung low in the sky and cast a red glow over the deck. Only two realms were visible in the sky: Horus and Perla itself. Even with my naked eye, I could see Horus’ surface: a barren, yellow-red world covered in sandstorms. I looked instead to Perla, lifting the tube to my eye and pointing it at the sickly purple glow at the center of the realm: the capital city of Ilia.

  The moment I looked through the tube, I felt a pull and found myself standing on one of the city’s shining golden towers. I fought for balance, but unseen hands steadied me. “Easy, Ren. Look around.” I heard Scarlet's voice, but could not see her.

  I felt the deck under my feet and the sea breeze on my lips, but my vision hovered at the edge of Ilia's towers. Lightning-filled storm clouds covered the once-brilliant city. Horrifying creatures, features twisted beyond all recognition, marched through the streets with chained groups of players and NPCs.

  Five towers jewel-topped towers ringed the city. All but one lay dormant and dark. But the one that shone in the gloom took my breath away. Emerald-green light burst from the jewel and burned away the clouds above it. The monsters in the streets gave the tower a wide berth. Men and women stood at the windows of the tower and launched volleys of arrows at any monsters that drew near.

  Scarlet spoke again. “Carefully, now. Lower the tube and take a breath.”

  I pul
led the tube away from my eye and found myself back on the deck of the Privateer's Fall. I took a deep breath to steady myself. The name of the item hovered above it.

  <<<>>>

  The Looking Glass of the Dragonfly

  Legendary Item

  This looking glass grants the user the ability to see a destination as if they were there themselves. Sought after by spies and generals, this legendary item is said to be capable of looking through time itself.

  <<<>>>

  "How did you find something like this?" I asked.

  Scarlet grinned, the first time I had seen a genuine, unguarded expression on her face. “That’s a long story. Better settle in.”

  Chapter Twenty Five: Loremaster

  Scarlet pointed to the map on her wall. “When the beta for Perla Online began, I started in Tarawi. Players weren’t scattered all over the realms back then—they started in areas based on their class. Swashbucklers started on Shella.” She smiled, a wistful look on her face. “I had a group of friends I played with, and we made it our goal to find every secret we could. I kept detailed notes on every location we went to."

  “The beta was filled with glitches. Most players wouldn’t notice, but my group and I made it a point to try and break the game in any way we could. During one of those attempts, we discovered a quest. An NPC told us a story about a legendary item hidden away somewhere in the realm, locked in a treasure chest at the bottom of the sea. The quest should have been inaccessible, but one of my friends had found a way to trigger it without meeting the prerequisites.”

  “How did he do that?” I asked.

  Scarlet shrugged. “I didn’t understand exactly how all of that worked. I just kept the notes and did the research. To get around a lot of the requirements, we had to know the lore of the world. That was my job. If there were a Loremaster class in this game, I would take it.”