“DOT?” I say. “Sweet. Do mine.” She complies and soon it’s my job just to play keep away from the globs and wait for the queen’s bubble to pop. It’s got to have a cooldown. And maybe that’s when we get these two beasties killed.
“Do you need food or anything?” I ask. “While we’re waiting for them to die?”
“Leeroy Jenkinz, we can’t eat in combat.” She looks at me like I’m stupid. I feel stupid. I guess technically we are still fighting. I skitter back another few steps as the inkling approaches me.
“Maybe hit them again, do you think?”
Cat checks the DOT seconds remaining and apparently agrees with me, because she fires again at the first one, then waits a moment, and fires again at mine.
Around us, the walls of the chamber we’re in have started rumbling. I’m backed up almost against one and step away from it a bit. Is this a result of my little Trojan horse? I try to think of all that I’ve just undone and realize that in a magical land, it could well include the destruction of the giant archway of the portal that we’re sitting directly underneath. The walls ripple a bit with streams of dust falling down from above. The noise grows deafening as the two inkblots are finally drained of all their health points, thanks to Catriona’s spell, and drop to their death, one after another.
We both jump into engage the queen, whose bubble has expired with the death of the ink blob creatures. I find my way behind her and stick’em and slash my way to advanced rage. Then I fangstrike her and start the process again, this time culminating in claw. Every several moves that I make, Cat shoots out a series of light balls in rapid succession, each hitting the queen for more damage that my stick’ems do.
Queen Lunacaller seems intent on taking down Catriona, who has encased herself in a shield bubble. Like an afterthought, one pops up around me.
I take a breath between strikes and notice that the walls of the room are shaking in earnest now. I dive back into the fight.
I move like the wind. I am a blur. The Queen is strong, but her reliance on spells that take forever to cast is her weakness. While Catriona distracts her with her glitzy arcs of painful light magic, I wield my daggers like flechettes; they are light in my hands and blood wells up from a thousand little nicks on every exposed bit of flesh. I imagine her writhing in pain as the poison stacks on her. The Queen’s health bar falls steadily and I feel like we’re going to get her down any moment now. Then I see her lips moving. Damn it.
“Cat, interrupt her!” I shout.
But it’s too late.
I move to unleash the claw on the Queen. Satisfyingly, my dagger plunges into her body. I drive it in to the hilt, but then the Queen’s spell explodes from her like a sonic boom and Catriona and I are both thrown violently back by the impact.
I am stunned for a moment. I shake my head to clear it and look around. The whole room is shaking, and debris is falling from all around. The walls collapse partially, filling in the entrance. We’re trapped. I look to the center of the room, where everything has collapsed in a heap and see the queen’s broken body underneath tumbled server racks. Good. I mean, it’s one less quest for me to complete, but at least she’s immobilized.
Then, like a bad dream, I see her mouth moving, hear her wheezing spell words. She’s still got something left in the tank. I run to finish her off, but I arrive too late. She smiles at me as the world falls to pieces around us.
“At least I won’t die alone,” she says. Just then, her spell materializes and takes hold. All of a sudden there’s a rush of air on my face like the wind and too late I realize it’s all the air leaving the room. Fuck this. I finish the queen off with my daggers, but her spell keeps going.
Congratulations! Quest Complete. You’ve been rewarded with ...
I wave the message away. I’ll look at my bags later, if there is a later. In front of my face is a blue oxygen bar, and it’s steadily declining. I understand that if it hits zero, I’m dead.
Chapter 31
It’s like I’m drowning. That’s what it feels like. If I’m going to die now, I better make sure I’m not doing it in vain. I look over and see that the box I needed destroyed has come out of the destruction from the quake unscathed. Shit!
“Cat! Help me destroy this box!” She comes over to me and I whisper, “We have to get this done before we run out of air.”
We start banging at the box with fallen rocks. We only make dents at first, it doesn’t want to give, and then finally the damn thing cracks open. Once that happens, its innards are toast. Catriona sizzles them with some kind of spell. Then she collapses in a heap on the floor. I get to her side as quickly as I can, given how weak I’m feeling. I don’t talk; I can’t.
I can see my future before me. I’m going to pass out and die, and my in-game ghost will have to go and find my body, which I can resurrect and then I will die again since there’s no bloody way to get out of this goddamn airless chamber.
There are still massive booming noises coming from above. Rubble comes down around us still. My air is nearly out; I’m getting ready to start that continual loop of dying, finding my body, resurrecting, and dying. Awesome.
Group request: would you like to join Catriona’s group?
Oh, that’s sweet of her. We can die together like some long lost soul mates. I accept.
Within moments my body is ripped into molecule-size shreds and reassembled back at the inn Catriona calls home in the capital of Silverkeep City. Her homestone. Oh, thank god. I’d forgotten all about them, and mine hadn’t even reset yet. After taking a huge lungful of air, I pull that woman into my arms and kiss her. “Thank you,” I say. “You saved my life.”
“Thank you,” she says. “I think you saved everyone’s future. Do you want to go watch the portal drop?” Her eyebrow cocks up, her eyes have a mischievous glint.
“Sure?”
“Follow me,” she says.
We start to climb and we keep on climbing the stairs for some time. We get to the top and Catriona takes me down a long hallway and into what looks like a closet, but turns out to be a closet containing a spiral staircase. We climb this, too. At the very top, there is a balcony and from this balcony with a little wrought iron railing, and from this place we watch the portal fall.
It’s still shaking, and we can see giant cracks at the base of it, even from this distance. We can hear the roar too. It sounds like a tornado; it sounds like distress. The ground rumbles out from the portal and there are great clouds of dust coming up from the ground all around it. And then everything grows silent for a moment.
All at once, the giant arch falls, powering straight down into the chambers underneath it. I get an in-game notification.
Bring Down the Portal Quest Complete!
Congratulations! You have completed the unique quest line for this experience. There’s a party in your honor at the rogue’s guild. Thank you for playing with VR World!
I get a sick little lurch in my stomach at the words “VR World.” I’d forgotten. I’d actually forgotten.
Congratulations! You’ve earned +10 Bardic credit. You now have 25 bardic credits. You’ve done something worth singing about. You have united the human and Arcadian lands. Notice: Bardic credit is non-transferrable. Once you have earned 100 Bardic credit, your story will be submitted to the bardic guild and a song will be commissioned on your behalf, telling of your adventures as a hero in the land.
In my head I’m already making plans. I have to get to Arcadia proper and see where the immersion jail is where they tanked all the rebels, and then I have to find Cat and break her free ... and then ... the future is ours.
There’s cheering in the streets below, and Catriona and I look down to see a great crowd has gathered, filling up the cobblestone courtyard and streets. “I’m so happy right now,” she says.
“Me too,” I say, and I pull her in for a kiss. Her lips are luscious; her tongue lights me on fire. I’m hungry for more. “It’s a whole new world.”
Then Cat
riona says, “I can’t believe it. All of this, it’s a dream come true. I’m not the kind of girl who gets to have her dreams come true.”
I’m struck, suddenly, with a thought that makes me sick to my stomach. I don’t even want to think about the details. Not yet. Not now. I wrap Catriona even closer in my arms, pull her in to smell her hair. I want to just dissolve in this moment. But I can’t keep the sickening thought inside me, either. If I just finished the end of the unique quest line I purchased, then who knows how long I really have left in this land. “I’m having the most awful thought,” I say. “What if this is all just part of the game? What if it all resets tomorrow?”
“How will you know?”
“I guess I’ll find out when I log out of the game.”
“Don’t do it yet.”
“No,” I agree. “Not yet.” And I pull her in even closer, smelling her lilac scent, willing the moment to last forever.
THE END
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Acknowledgments
No author writes alone. I’m grateful to the community I have around me and all the help I’ve had along this journey.
Thank you to my fellow RPGers and guildmates. Without you there would be no Arcadia.
I’m grateful to my early cheerleaders, to the people who believed in me and wouldn’t let me stop writing.
Endless gratitude to Amy, Patrick, Monica, Kalvin, Kerry, and Haley.
I’m grateful to my early readers, who assured me my story was geek-out worthy. Thank you Tom, Claire, and Ryan.
A special thank you to Sean, Johnny, and Dave. Without the intensive focus and support of their Apprentice program, this book may never have come into being. Also, to my fellow Apprentices, I’m grateful for your support and friendship.
To Logan, Freya, and Delilah. Thank you for understanding that “Mommy’s writing right now.”
Author’s Note
Dear Reader,
Writing and gaming are my two favorite things. I’m guessing that gaming and reading are among your favorite things, too.
I’ve been writing for decades, but I’ve finally found my home in the LitRPG genre. Few things in my life have been as much fun as writing this book was, and I know I’m barely scratching the surface of the potential for fun adventures in this medium. I hope you enjoyed reading Arcadia Unlocked. If it was half as much fun for you to read as it was for me to write, then I think we’re good.
Thank you for reading my book. An author is nothing without an audience. I appreciate you.
If you’d like to help readers like you (and authors like me), please consider leaving a brief review on Amazon. Every review helps bring the right readers to books they’ll love.
LitRPG FTW!
Alyssa
Arcadia Unlocked: A LitRPG Novel (Arcadia LitRPG Book 1) Page 17