Travail Online: Resurrection: LitRPG Series (Book 2)

by Brian Simons

  “It’s a long walk,” Daniel said.

  “Then let’s start at seven o’clock. Any objections?” Coral asked.

  Sal and Sybil shook their heads. Daniel said, “That’s super early.”

  “Great,” Coral said. “Then it’s unanimous. We’ll start at seven. Goodnight, guys.” She turned to Daniel. “A word?”

  Coral vanished in a tuft of smoke.

  “What does she mean, a word? She logged out,” Sybil said.

  “I’m sort of at her house right now,” Daniel said.

  “Oh really?” Sybil asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “It’s not like that, I’m sleeping in her parents’ room.”

  “You’d better go,” Sybil said. “It’s rude to keep a lady waiting.”

  Daniel nodded and logged out.

  He took off his visor and rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands.

  “You should head home,” Coral said from the doorway.

  “Oh,” Daniel said, “I thought maybe we should talk.”

  “I think you should have tried talking earlier, instead of keeping all these secrets. Secrets that affect all of us, not just you,” Coral said.

  “I didn’t even understand all of what was going on,” Daniel said. “Devon Shirk showed up and told me I should become a Rogue, and then I stole a vial of poison that started speaking to me.”

  “Speaking to you?”

  “Yeah, it’s been in my inventory, just begging me to use it.”

  “It must be nice for you to have someone to talk to, since you weren’t keen on talking to any of us,” Coral said.

  “That’s not fair,” Daniel said.

  “What’s not fair,” Coral said, “is taking this chatty poison, telling no one, inviting us to dinner with the Regent and all of his guards, then poisoning everyone, without warning us, and losing your class in the process. There’s more at stake here than whatever side quest came your way. Sal has been brainwashed. Can we talk about that? This game that we play has the technology to manipulate our minds. He’s going to be evicted soon, and he’s not the only one the game is manipulating. You weren’t there when the game took over Sybil’s actions and made her sing her life story to a crowd of strangers. Can you imagine what that’s like, to stand on a stage powerless as the game moves your body and forces you to divulge all of that?”

  “I know,” Daniel said, “that’s why I’m coming to the temple tomorrow to put a stop to all this.”

  “You’d better. But for now, you should just go home.”

  Daniel gathered up his things. “I’ll return your dad’s clothing another time?”

  “That’s fine.” Coral leaned against the doorframe with her arms folded. Daniel brushed past her on his way out before heading down the stairs and out the front door.

  ***

  It was late evening by the time Daniel was off the bus and back at the front door to his own house. He unlocked it and crept inside.

  “Where have you been?” his mother asked from the living room. She sat in a recliner in the dark. Daniel wasn’t sure whether she had fallen asleep there or just had nothing to do. The streetlight outside their window would have at least let some light in, but the curtains were drawn closed as usual.

  “I was at Coral’s house,” he said.

  “Well you still haven’t done the dishes,” his mother said. “I asked you to do that, I’m not going to do it for you.”

  “You’re perfectly healthy,” he shot back at her, “and have no occupation. Do your own dishes.” He reached the stairs before she yelled back at him.

  “If you want to live in this house—”

  “No, if you want to live in this house, you’ll leave me alone. I’ve had a long day. Travail isn’t the fun work it’s made out to be. It’s not all just a game, it’s sweat, and pain, and heartache. I watched someone die today and now she doesn’t even want to speak to me.”

  “That makes no sense,” his mother said.

  “Not to you,” he replied and walked up the stairs to his room. He locked the door behind him. He had only been gone a couple of days, but already the room seemed foreign to him.

  He opened up his laptop and logged into the message boards. After a quick search he found the post Coral had made. It had thousands of comments. He had never seen so much attention to a single post before. Other players left posts of encouragement, of thanks. Coral had quite a following. What did Daniel have? No degree and no job IRL. Fewer friends by the second. He couldn’t even keep a job class in the game.

  His eyes drifted to the letter from Philadelphia University sitting next to his computer. It was bathed in blue-tinged light from his open laptop screen. He wasn’t ready to admit defeat yet, but he was less sure now than ever before that Travail Online was a good permanent solution.

  Daniel shut his laptop and lied down on his bed to sleep. Apparently he needed to wake up early tomorrow for work.

  32

  Coral woke up to the same empty house she had woken up to for months. This morning, however, it felt a little emptier than usual. Maybe she should get a cat.

  After a light breakfast and a shower, she logged into Travail.

  The Arena was practically empty this early in the morning. “I thought you hated early,” Coral said.

  “I guess after a few days of waking up early with you, I got used to it,” Daniel said. He was leaning against one of the entry columns, one foot in the Arena and one foot in the Sand Barrens.

  “We didn’t wake up together,” Coral said. “We woke up in the same house, at the same time.”

  “Not for nothing,” Daniel said, taking a step toward her, “but I’ve rejected Devon Shirk’s every attempt to turn me rogue, I resisted the Regent’s quest to conquer the mines, and I’m heading into the unknown with this quest to defeat Sagma, which isn’t even a proper quest, just some thing that we’re doing. I think I deserve a little credit for that.”

  “You don’t get credit for doing what’s right,” she said. “You don’t get a gold star or a cookie, you just do it because it’s what you have to do.”

  “I don’t have to do anything, Coral. I decided to do these things.”

  “Well, you said you wouldn’t lie to me anymore, Daniel. And you decided to start again.”

  “I didn’t lie to you,” Daniel said, stiffening his back. “I promised I wouldn’t do that, and I haven’t.”

  “You kept secrets, Daniel, that’s the same thing. I think deep down you know that. You kept these secrets brewing for a long time now, by the look of it.”

  “Did you consult me before you told the world to damage their Travail visors?”

  Daniel’s question hung in the air like an accusation. He had some nerve, equating the two things. He injured countless NPCs that had previously helped them and abandoned his class, complete with all of the skills he had opened. His decision put them all at risk.

  “My secret plan didn’t put anyone in danger, or alienate any allies,” she said.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Just quit it, Daniel. Let’s focus on getting through today so we can all move on from this.”

  “What does that mean?” Daniel asked. “Move on? Are you leaving the team?”

  “Is that what we are?”

  Sal appeared at the Arena entrance. “Hi, guys!” he yelled. “Today’s the big day. Let’s go see Sagma!”

  Sybil was the next to appear.

  “Let’s go,” Coral said, and left the Arena. The others followed behind. Daniel jogged to catch up with her.

  “This conversation isn’t over,” he said. Coral didn’t bother to respond.

  The desert air was still cool in the morning, but the sun grew higher and hotter as they walked north. By the time they had Sagma’s tower in view, the desert was back to its scorching heat.

  They heard the tower before they saw it. Dozens of NPCs were hard at work, banging away with hammers and chiseling the final features into the stonework. A scaffold reached
the top of the tower, where a handful of large crystal shards fanned out from the tower, like a cactus flower in full bloom.

  “It’s huge,” Sybil said. “How did they build so high in so little time?”

  “Our donation dollars hard at work!” Sal said. He started jogging ahead to get closer to the tower. The rest of the group followed.

  The entrance to the temple was framed by two massive stone statues. Each depicted a bird with one foot on the ground, and one foot holding a snake in the air.

  Gone was the narrow passageway lined with sparse torches. The entry corridor was wide and bright, leading to a larger sanctuary. Rows upon rows of empty pews led to a gilded altar with a large stone seat for the temple’s celebrant that sat like a throne. There was no sign of Vernagi, Alua, or Marco.

  “Now what?” Sybil asked.

  “We need to find Vernagi,” Coral said. “She’ll know what’s going on here, and we need answers. We only have a few hours before noon.”

  “There’s a door,” Daniel said, standing out of sight behind the celebrant’s seat. Coral walked toward the back of the temple and saw it. The large granite door had the strange “F” symbol of Sagma etched into it and filled with gold. The decorative inlay alone must be worth hundreds of dollars.

  Sybil walked up to the door and tried to pry the gold from it with the tip of her spear, but it didn’t budge. “Worth a shot,” she said.

  Daniel pulled open the stone door and stepped onto a small landing. A door to their left was ajar, revealing a stairwell leading down. Coral peeked through a small window toward the top of the door on their right and saw stairs leading up, but the door itself was locked.

  “I guess we’re going down,” Coral said.

  It was a short walk. The stairs ended after only one flight, leading to another door. Coral pushed it open and stepped into a large room. A dozen torches lined each side. The room was otherwise empty, but for a large basket standing in the middle.

  “There’s another door,” Daniel said, stepping into the room. The second his foot touched the stone floor, the lid to the basket moved. A pair of eyes peered out at them for a moment before a long, dark shape slithered out. Then another, and another. The basket was full of wyverns.

  “Of course,” Sybil said, bracing herself for battle. She held her spear out in both hands. Sal had no mallet left, but he stood ready to fight bare-handed. Daniel took out his sword.

  A dozen snakes poured from the basket. Coral wanted to run into the room and grab a torch. The basket would make ready tinder, but she wasn’t sure how Daniel would react to a blazing fire in the middle of the room. She might be upset with him, but she didn’t want to send him into a panic. Besides, she needed everyone to be ready for battle.

  Coral peered at one of the wyverns for a second.

  >> Level 30 Wyvern.

  “Watch out,” she said. “They’re stronger than last time.”

  As if their minds were synced, the wyverns took flight at the same time, their thin leathery wings flapping madly as the swarm of snakes moved toward them.

  Coral fired off an arrow at the nearest wyvern.

  >> Wyvern takes 260 Damage.

  The flying serpent dove at Coral’s arm, but she smacked it away with her bow. It landed on the ground and quickly leapt back into the air. Another wyvern approached from the front, and Coral barely ducked in time to avoid getting bitten in the neck.

  Sal had his hand wrapped around a wyvern’s neck, choking the life out of it, while Sybil had one stuck to the end of her spear.

  A Hot Shot would burn right through these mobs and whittle down their number quickly, but Coral needed to save her MP for a potential tangle with Sagma. She didn’t relish the idea of attacking one of Travail’s gods, but this deity had struck the first blow by manipulating players’ minds.

  Fangs dug into Coral’s calf, piercing holes into her armor.

  >> You lose 15 XP.

  That’s right. These monsters reduced XP, not HP. Coral whipped around, but the snake attached to her leg rotated with her. She couldn’t aim an arrow at the snake behind her. She lifted her other foot and scraped it down the back of her leg, dislodging the wyvern. She stomped on its head.

  >> Wyvern takes 648 Damage. [Dazed].

  The snake had stopped slithering. Coral wasn’t sure how long the Dazed debuff would last, but this was her chance. She slammed her foot onto the thing’s head again and finished it off.

  >> Wyvern takes 710 Damage. Wyvern dies. You receive 112 XP.

  Another snake flew at Coral’s face, but she swatted at it with her hand. Her fingers lodged into its mouth. Before the snake could snap its jaw shut, she thrust her other hand out, grabbed its head, and tore its lower jaw from its body. After throwing the monster to the ground, she stomped on what was left of its head until it died.

  >> Wyvern dies. You receive 112 XP.

  Daniel had sliced a wing off two of the wyverns. They writhed on the floor, flapping one wing in vain attempts to fly upward. He slammed his blade down on both at once, ending their lives with a loud clang of metal on stone. Sal had a small pile of strangled snakes at his feet, and Sybil had shoved her spear down the length of one. She pulled the dead body from her weapon and tossed its lifeless form on the floor.

  Before long, all twelve monsters were slain.

  Daniel walked forward and kicked the basket at the center of the room. It was as tall as he was. It fell to its side, sending the round lid rolling toward the other side of the room.

  “There’s a key,” he said, crawling into the basket.

  “Do you think it opens the upper half of the tower?” Coral asked.

  “Maybe,” Daniel said, “but let’s finish the lower half first. If the upper half is locked, that means Vernagi could be down here.”

  >> Construction update: The restoration of Sagma’s tower is 100% complete. Continue donating gold to the god of wisdom through your status window to strengthen his influence!

  “Unbelievable,” Sybil said. “The temple is complete, but they’re still asking for money. This will never end, will it?”

  “It will,” Coral said, “if we have anything to say about it.”

  They crossed the room and found a door that led to another single flight of stairs. The next level below was another room made of stone. The first two feet of flooring were one large slab of gray granite. Beyond that, the room was made of white tiles set out in a perfect grid as far as Coral could see. Interior walls were built at seemingly random intervals, running anywhere from two tiles wide to half the width of the room. It was impossible to see how far the room stretched.

  “Is this some kind of maze?” Sybil asked, taking a small step forward onto the large slab.

  “There’s a lever on the wall,” Coral said. “Should I pull it?”

  “Anything could happen,” Daniel said. “It’s too risky. The door could shut behind us, the whole room could collapse or fill with something deadly. I don’t like it.”

  “So we just ignore it?” Coral said. “It’s got to be here for a reason.”

  “Maybe we should just see what’s on the other side of those walls first,” Sal said, stepping off the granite slab and onto one of the white tiles.

  When his boot touched the tile, the two tiles in front of that one fell away, leaving a black hole in their stead.

  “What’s down there?” Daniel asked.

  Sal bent down and peered into the abyss beneath him. “Spikes,” Sal said. “Lots of very pointy spikes.”

  “Can you jump across to the next tile?” Coral asked.

  “No, it’s too far,” Sal said. He took a step to the right, and the two tiles to the right of that one disappeared, just as the first two had.

  “It’s some kind of puzzle,” Daniel said.

  “I wish I knew that before I started it,” Sal said.

  “I wonder if this lever is meant to reset the puzzle,” Coral said.

  “Sal,” Daniel said, “step back. We’ll give the l
ever a shot.”

  “But just in case,” Sybil said, stepping back through the doorframe and exiting the room. “I’ll watch from here.”

  Coral waited until Sal was back on the starting platform, then she pulled the lever. The sound of metal grinding on metal filled the air. All of the tiles fell into the dark pit at the bottom of the room, revealing a six foot drop that ended in three foot spikes. The interior wall segments slid to the sides of the room. On the opposite side was another granite platform and another lever.