Shard Wraith: A LitRPG Novel (Crystal Shards Online Book 3)

by Rick Scott

  “Yes,” Becky says. “But how long will a wooden wall last versus those giants?”

  Val Helena frowns but doesn’t give an answer.

  My stomach sinks again. Maybe this is doomed to fail just like Aiko said.

  “I got it!” Gilly yells. “We can kill two birds with one stone. Pun intended!”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “We start drilling early,” she says with an infectious smile. “We drill way back as far west as we can, before the storm breaks. The spoil from the tunneling we can use as the materials to build the wall.”

  “You think it’ll be enough?” Val Helena asks.

  Gilly shrugs. “Again. Won’t know till we start digging, but it’ll be worth a shot.”

  I’m impressed once again by Gilly’s quick problem-solving. I wonder if maybe she inherited that engineering mind of hers from her dad. It makes me appreciate just how awesome she truly is.

  “Let’s get started building that drill then,” I say, rising from the table. “We don’t have any time to waste.”

  Chapter 31: Motivations

  I almost wish I could eat my words when I remember what building the drill will mean for me personally. We need over 200 ingots of iron and there is only one place to get them. Thankfully the whole team heads down into the worm hole to help out, minus Becky who gets on with rendering the oil from the worm meat, and Aiko who elects to stay in the common room; doing who knows what.

  I volunteer for the ‘crap’ detail since I’m sort of used to it and it means only one of us will need to take a bath afterwards. Rembrandt pitches in with his clones and Maxis takes over Aiko’s role of recreating the armor when I trade it to him. Val Helena switches to Blacksmith and helps Gilly break down the armor into ingots. We get to work, and after Maxis gets over the initial shock of the first couple of pieces, we set into a fairly steady pace.

  The trips into the dung cavern get longer and longer as we exhaust the piles closest to the opening. I settle into an almost mind-numbing trace as I haul out piece after piece and after a while I don’t even smell the stink anymore. I pass the time by chatting with Rembrandt about the game world some more. It’s still a great mystery to me, how everything works and Rembrandt seems to have a passion for trying to figure it all out as much as I do.

  “I still don’t get the time dilation,” Rembrandt says, pulling a rusted pike from one of the heaping mounds of filth. “If we were back in a virtual environment it could make sense perhaps. But we were still physical in there, so real world physics should apply.”

  “Yeah like how the Labyrinth Spirit was floating,” I say. “Becky and I talked about that. She said the guy she was with, the dwarf—he thought the whole labyrinth was in space or something. What do you make of that?”

  Rembrandt mulls it over while he passes the pike to one of his clones. “And you said that hell place you went seemed like a different planet too?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Do you think that’s possible?”

  “It could explain the time dilation maybe,” Rembrandt says. “Although it’s iffy.”

  “How so?”

  “You studied relativity?”

  “Like Einstein?” I ask, recalling doing a module on it once.

  “Yes, he theorized travelling close to the speed of light compresses time. Massive gravity does too. But I can’t really see how we could have been subject to forces like that. It hurts my head when I think about it too much.”

  I chuckle. “Hurts my head even not thinking about it.”

  He grins. “I’ve got another theory too.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I wonder if it could be pocket dimensions or something. The labyrinth and the sphere.”

  “Pocket dimensions?”

  “Like worlds within worlds. Not virtual, but real.”

  I furrow my brow at him. “How’s that work?”

  “You’re probably going to think I’m mad, but…my uncle used to be a programmer for the Shards. He was explaining to me once that the code that runs the game world is based more on physics than programming. Because that’s what the game truly runs on: a quantum processor, quantum physics. He said the reason it all works is because the code is actually altering reality at its most fundamental level.”

  I stop in the middle of pulling a shield from a pile of dung. “Alter reality?”

  “Told you, you’d think I was mad,” he says with a laugh. “I thought my uncle was too. But after seeing the inside of the labyrinth, maybe it’s true.”

  I nod considering it. “Becky said something about the monsters perhaps coming from another dimension as well. Kind of freaked me out, to be honest.”

  Rembrandt shrugs. “Anything’s possible, mate. That’s how I look at it.”

  I’m not sure if I’m at that stage of accepting that yet, but I can say that what happened in the labyrinth was far beyond anything I’d experienced in the game world or on the surface before. Again, more mysteries to be solved.

  “You think once we get to New London they’ll have answers there? Like how the whole system really works?”

  “I’m hoping so,” Rembrandt says. “And if we can figure that out, we may have a good shot at pinpointing Citadel too. What you and Gilly discovered has opened my eyes to far more possibilities than I knew even existed. The spheres, the interconnectedness. Trust me, if your brother and I knew about all this a month ago, we might have saved Citadel already.”

  I smile at the thought. “I’m hoping it will be that easy once we get there.”

  “Me as well, but we shouldn’t get too ahead of ourselves,” Rembrandt says. “We still need to get there as you say and I reckon that Braxus won’t be too happy we made it out of that labyrinth alive.”

  “Yeah,” I say scowling. “I bet not.”

  Resentment bubbles in my gut as my thoughts turn to him. Will he be there, I wonder? Leading the charge? Or will he send another one of his lackeys to do his dirty work? I picture what I’d do to him, if I saw him atop one of those mammoths again. Gilly is safe now, but he still needs to pay. But at the back of my mind I recall Aiko’s warning and the way Gilly looked at me in the worm tunnel, almost afraid when I said I was going to make Braxus suffer. That reminds me of something else I wanted to ask Rembrandt.

  “Hey, Rem. Can I get your opinion on something?”

  “Sure.”

  I take a deep breath and explain the whole Braxus thing to him, starting with my failure to kill him when I had the chance. I talk about what happened with Ziegfried too and how Aiko stopped me from exacting my revenge.

  “It seems contradictory to me,” I say. “One minute I’m too weak? And the next I’m too pure? Seriously, what the heck, man?”

  Rembrandt nods as if in agreement.

  “So what do you think? Am I wrong to feel the way I do now?”

  Rembrandt keeps digging away at a pile of dung for a moment, perhaps considering his response. Finally, he pauses and flashes his mirror shades towards me.

  “Motivations and outcomes are two different things. They can appear the same from the outside, but it’s the inside that really matters.”

  Eesh. Talk about cryptic.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  Rembrandt stops working and faces me directly. “Say if you had killed Braxus back in Stormwall—it certainly would have made things much easier for us, right?”

  “No doubt.”

  “But what would it have taken for you to do it?”

  I shrug. “To be stronger, I guess.”

  “And do you feel you’re stronger now?”

  I huff out a scoff. “Trust me. When I get the opportunity, I’m not making the same mistake twice. He’s going to pay for what he did to Gilly and Aiko. And Diana too. I’m going to bury that guy.”

  “That’s your motivation, then,” Rembrandt says, pointing at me. “Retribution. Not strength.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s easy to hurt someone in retaliation. Like Aiko sai
d, you can even get addicted to it, lose your soul over it.” He rests a hand on my shoulder. “That’s what’s fueling you right now. But I think your first instinct, back in Stormwall, was the correct one.”

  I squint at him, perplexed. “You’re saying I made the right decision not to kill him?”

  “I’m talking about your motivation,” he says. “Your true character. You’re a kid with a good heart, Reece. And that shows. But it also led to the consequences we’re facing now.”

  That reminds me of what Val Helena said to me too, about my heart being the best thing about me.

  “So you’re saying I didn’t make the right choice then,” I say, feeling like a failure again.

  Rembrandt chuckles. “You sensed the right choice though. You knew taking care of Braxus would have been the smart thing to do, but your character wouldn’t allow you to carry it out.”

  “Right,” I say. “My weakness, you mean.”

  “If that’s what you want to call it,” he says, smiling. “But what you’re attempting to do now is perhaps even more weak.”

  “What?”

  “You’re letting emotion make the choice for you, your hatred and anger. There’s strength in that, yes. But the damage had to already occur for you to feel that anger. That doesn’t require true strength.”

  True strength? “So what’s that, in your opinion?”

  Rembrandt pauses. “True strength would be holding on to your character, knowing what you’re doing could be considered wrong and still making the choice to do so anyway. For the greater good.”

  What he says makes my stomach dip a little. “Sounds kind of cold-blooded to me. Like violating my own conscience.”

  “Again, motivations and outcomes are two different things. It could look cold-blooded from the outside, but only you can know what your true motivations are. Everyone can see and understand the hatred and anger that fuels vengeance and retaliation. That’s easy.”

  “But that’s bad too, right?”

  He shrugs. “It is what it is, mate. Sometimes it’s unavoidable. But dwelling on it can make you become hollow too. Callused. Like Aiko said, it can make you do things you didn’t think you were capable of. It can really make you lose your soul.”

  “Like a Shard Wraith.”

  He nods. “A good way to put it.”

  “So what’s the alternative?”

  “Justice,” he says. “Doing what needs to be done, even though you might not want to. That takes true strength, mate. It may even mean not killing someone who truly deserves it, if it serves a greater purpose. You sensed that back in Stormwall. You just weren’t ready to cross that bridge yet.”

  “Yeah…” I say absently as I mull it over. “I guess you’re right.” I never considered things like this before. I knew Rembrandt was bound to have a unique perspective on the matter but I surely wasn’t expecting all this.

  “Dang Rem, it’s like you’re an expert on all this stuff or something.”

  He chuckles. “I suppose I am, a bit…” And then his countenance changes, his smile fading. “I had to learn the hard way, mate. Like your brother said, the people in New London make Braxus look like a toddler.”

  “For real?”

  “Games set in New London are mostly Shooters and PvP based. They breed a whole different kind of player. A winner-take-all mentality. Ruthless.” He pauses a moment, old memories perhaps playing in his mind. “I thought like you at first. We’re all humans, right? And death on the surface is real, so how could I kill anyone? But like I said…I had to learn the hard way.”

  “What happened?” I ask.

  He cracks a grin. “A story for another time, perhaps. The main thing is, always know you have a choice, Reece. When the time comes, you’re going to have to deal with Braxus. There’s no question about that. The choice you need to make is what you’ll become when you do so. Your motivation. That’ll define who you are. And you’ll have to live with whoever you become afterwards.”

  His words rock me to the core of my soul. I never even gave thought to anything like this until now. Before it was always if I could even muster the wherewithal to kill Braxus or not. But now it seems a lot more is at stake.

  And it’s more to do with me than about him.

  I’m itching to know what happened to Rembrandt in New London now. What happened to make him think this way? To so keenly split the hairs between vengeance and justice. It must have been something painful. Something he deeply regrets. But I can’t think to ask him about it now.

  “Man…this is deep, Rem,” I say with a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood. “I almost wish I hadn’t asked you about all this.”

  He laughs. “Ignorance is bliss, my friend.”

  He couldn’t be more right. We get back to work and it actually feels good to take my mind off the whole thing. Compared to considering the consequences of my actions and motivation, plowing through piles of filthy worm dung seems like a much easier task.

  * * *

  It takes a good two hours of digging to get all the iron we need. By the time I leave the cavern, Gilly has the drill half-constructed. It kind of looks like an old locomotive train—made of black iron and about the size of a van. At the front is the drill head, a flat disc about four feet wide and covered in foot long drill bits. Behind it is the gearbox and steam engine and finally a large metal tank which I guess is the boiler.

  Gilly is still hammering away with Val Helena on the iron ingots, crafting the last pieces for the contraption. It’s amazing to watch them work. They each have solid metal hammers and strike the iron ingots with a flurry of sparks. With each hit, the metal takes shape as if by magic, forming into whatever piece they are creating. As I focus on the pieces themselves I see a percentage bar increase with each hit. In between, they also use abilities that adjust their success chance, much like mining.

  Gilly grabs a new ingot and I study her as she goes to work.

  Gilly uses Temper Metal.

  Success rate decreased. Item HQ chance increased.

  Gilly uses Forge Item.

  She strikes the ingot and in a flash of sparks and light, a pile of rivets appears in the ingot’s place.

  HQ success! Yield is doubled.

  Gilly has forged an Iron Rivet [10]

  “Nice one, Gilly!” I yell to her.

  I leave Rembrandt and Maxis chatting by the entrance to the crap cavern and walk closer to Gilly and Val Helena, but am mindful to keep my distance for fear of making them puke with my aroma. I get a closer look at the drill itself too, which I note is mounted on a set of iron wheels. Val Helena takes a handful of the rivets Gilly just made and begins banging them into the barrel like a stream drum with more flashes of sparks and light.

  “Holy cow,” I say, marveling at the device. “You guys actually built this whole thing while I was mucking away in that sewer?”

  “All thanks to you,” Gilly says with a grin. She then stands to admire her handiwork as well. “The nano does most of it, I guess. It kind of grows with each hit, so long as I don’t screw up.”

  “Screw up?”

  “Crafting can fail, you know?” Val Helena says with a wink as she keeps slamming away, using her great height to reach the highest parts of the drill. “If you suck, that is.”

  That gives both Gilly and I a chuckle.

  Gilly then looks to me. “You wanna try? It’s really fun.”

  “Maybe later,” I say, still self-conscious about my odor. “I need to get this stink off.”

  “All right,” she says. “We should be able to make a test run soon. Just need some wood for the boiler and the oil for the gearbox.”

  “I’ll grab some lumber,” Val Helena says, stepping back from the huge contraption admiring the work as well. The giantess has changed yet again, dressed in a leather apron like Gilly, but with not much on underneath besides a sports bra and panty-like undergarments. I’m guessing Blacksmith must be a low-priority job for her since she doesn’t have the cool accessories and
gear like Gilly does. But it does make her look kind of hot, though.

  I check her character.

  Name: Val Helena

  Sex: Female

  Race: Half-Giant

  Class: Blacksmith

  Level: 37

  Guild: Ragnarok

  Initiate’s Forging Hammer: +5 Smithing +5 TP

  Initiate’s Apron: +10 TP +5 Judgement

  “This was pretty fun to build,” Val Helena says, smiling at the drill. “I actually managed to level up a few times too.”

  Her words pique my interest and actually makes me want to give it a shot. I did like mining after all, and mining and smithing are close cousins. But then I realize something.

  “I don’t think I even have Blacksmith unlocked,” I say, checking my classes. “How do you unlock new classes now that we can change them?”

  Gilly shrugs. “Towns, I guess. Anyway, hurry back. I want you to see my baby in action.”

  I grin at the sparkle in her eyes. This is the Gilly I’ve truly been missing. She’s in her element now. I almost wish she could stay this way—safe behind some castle wall while she invents and builds and mines to her heart’s content.

  “Give me a few minutes,” I say. “I’ll check how Becky is making out with your oil too.”

  “Cool thanks!”

  “You stay with Gilly, babe,” Maxis says to Val Helena as he walks by. “I’ll head up with Reece to grab the wood for fuel.”

  “I’ll lend some hands too,” Rembrandt says from near the exit of the crap cavern. He then grins. “Actually, I already am.” And I figure he must be referring to some of his other clones still above. “How much do we need?”

  Gilly’s eyes light up with her HUD. “It burns twenty units an hour.”

  I wonder how much we even have left after building the camp.

  I do a quick check.

  Resources:

  Gold: 0 units

  Food: 0 units

  Wood: 153 units

  Stone: 60 units

  Iron: 70 units

  “We’re going to need more wood,” I say. “Especially to build the Ballista.”