by Aaron Jay
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Next Volume and More LitRPG
BEGINNER'S LUCK
Aaron Jay
Beginner’s Luck by Aaron Jay Weingrad Published by Pip Productions LLC
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
© 2017 Aaron Weingrad
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:
[email protected]
Cover by Valentina Migliore
To My Wife - you not only knew that writing this would be good for me you made sure I had the time and space to do it.
CHAPTER ONE
I wanted to rush, but once again Jude was winning the battle of wills between us. We were smuggling ten measures of nano to bribe a GM Jude had heard was open to some black market trading. The precious stuff moved oddly in an old container in my backpack. It was heavier somehow than it’s exactingly measured weight and moved against all logic of momentum and cohesion. It felt like anyone watching us would know I was carrying my life savings in nano by how my backpack shifted, pushing me forward like a hand shoving on the small of my back. My best friend had the patience of a saint or the maddening calm of the devil when he knows you can only squirm in his grasp. If I spoke to him, I’d break the silent truce between us. He would take it as an opportunity to try and talk me out of this again. His ascetic features, sallow instead of pale like mine, looked calm as if today wasn’t Roll Up. The day our permanent characters were created.
My features were as sharply drawn as his, but he came by his naturally. Mine were all due to lifestyle or lack thereof. I knew what he saw when he looked at me out of the corner of his eye. A hard diet and hard life for years had pared me down to a solid core. My hair was a buzz cut. Any extra biomass even from my hair given over to saving and generating nano.
We walked along over the broken pavement from one distant pool of illumination to the next as we passed under mostly dark and broken street lamps. The light poles were often completely missing their tops let alone working LEDs or wiring. My eyes would just become acclimatized to the dark when we would hit the next patch of light. No one else was out walking these streets, much less driving a vehicle. No one went places much anymore and certainly not along the route we were taking to an obscure public pod station near the edge of the safe zone. Agoraphobia was now a survival trait. I didn’t have it, but still, walking along abandoned streets intermittently night blind carrying a bribe was getting to me.
“Can you walk a little faster?” I said, breaking down.
“Miles, this is a stupid idea. Cheaters never prosper,” Jude calmly lectured.
Patronizing bastard, I thought for the millionth time in our friendship. Yet he was usually right. But not this time.
“This isn’t cheating. I am not looking for an unfair advantage. I just want a fair shot.”
“This isn’t the way to get it. You could have joined The Party Youth,” Jude offered.
But we both knew I couldn’t have. They wouldn’t have let me. I wouldn’t have passed the political vetting. Not with my family background. Not with my attitude. And even if they would have let me in I couldn’t have done it anyway. It would have finished breaking my father. Jude knew it too, but he wouldn’t admit how the game was rigged for members of The Party.
We had been friends since our early days at the Academy. Ms. Krowling assigned us to play and write a report on Tunnels & Trolls in History of Games. Somehow we just clicked as friends and our play styles always meshed. He was cool and deliberate. My focus wasn’t as good but I often had a flash of insight that let us win. Despite all the baggage that my name came with, he stood by me. I loved him like a brother but like anyone I thought of as family things weren’t simple or easy. His love life was causing me grief. Shouldn’t it be my love life that caused me grief?
“A little late for us to debate that all again. Anyway, you didn’t have to do yours with me. You could have a real Roll Up party with your family and Maya and everyone else.”
“I am pointing out that there is a way to get a fair shot,” Jude calmly stated.
“Not for me. And it isn’t a fair shot for anyone anyway if you have to join The Party to get it.”
“You sound like your father.”
That ended our conversation. I’d be damned if I’d start it again.
The public pod station was in a building of red brick and pitted mortar next to what must once have been a park. The grass had, of course, long since been scavenged under the few randomly surviving lights. There were even some pits dug randomly across the park where someone had tried to get biomass from the soil itself. We tried the door which should have been open but was locked. Jude looked at me to see if this minor obstacle would somehow make me change my mind. I knocked quietly at first, but when that didn’t elicit any response from inside I gave it some loud bangs. Muffled noises and a voice from inside let me know someone had heard us.
“-your horses!” was the half of the sentence I could make out as the door swung open.
“Public Pods are supposed to be open at all times,” said Jude
The man standing in the doorway was dressed in GM colors of black and white laid out in stripes. He actually had a little bit of a belly, which was astounding given the nature of pods, the game and nano and of course our starving world. I was relieved to see that gut as it was proof that the rumors Jude had heard were true. No GM at such an out of the way post could possibly be successful enough to afford wasting edible calories like that without black market resources.
“The door sticks. It was open. Who are you anyway?” the man said, hardly bothering to sell the lie about the door.
“We are here to Roll Up,” I said.
“Are you scheduled?”
“Yes. We signed this location up as a backup possibility.”
Big gut motioned us inside. There was a sour smell to the air.
“So, no friends and family here for the big day?” he asked with a knowing smirk.
I thought of my father and what he would say about the ceremony that surrounds Roll Up. Amazing how they get people to celebrate the ending of any meaningful life. Like training cows to cheer each other on as they enter the slaughterhouse. I shook myself. I wasn’t going to let my father decide things for me any more than I would The Party.
“No one but us,” Jude answered for us. I could swear he knew exactly what I was thinking. Well, I’m not that complicated, and he’d known me since I was seven.
I looked around. The GM Center had once been some sort of community center connected to the park from back when we had communities in the real world that could use some centering. The GM had a name tag that read Guttmacher. Truth in advertising. We followed him to an office with a truly astounding number of meal inserts stacked along the wall. I don’t think I had ever seen that many calories in one
place in my life. He looked at a chunky government tablet abandoned on the corner of the empty desk.
“Here you are. Miles Boone and Jude Sandoval.”
“How do we do this Mr. Guttmacher?” I asked.
“We only have the one Primary Pod here. Both of you guys know what kind of build you are looking to roll?”
“Of course,” said Jude
“Alright, then you guys decide which of you will go first,” Guttmacher said.
I looked at Jude, but I knew he wasn’t going to help me out with this. If I wanted to try this, I was going to have to take the plunge first.
“That is a lot of meal packs,” I said.
“Yeah? We are a public pod center. Have to have some for sale, don’t we?” Guttmacher said giving away nothing. “Want to buy some?”
The problem with black markets and illegal trade is that there is no contract enforcement. You used to buy something legally at a store and if they didn't deliver what they promised, the courts and police and whatnot would make them. If you didn't pay for what you bought, you’d go to jail. There is none of that for a black market exchange. If people don’t live up to their end of a deal you have to enforce things on your own somehow. My dad would have said that this is where most of the violence of illegal organized crime came from. A loan shark can’t take you to court or garnish your wages so he breaks enough legs to get people to pay. Doing all your own contract enforcement turns out to be expensive and inefficient. Black market goods and services are expensive because being your own cops and court and bank is expensive.
One thing our society had in spades is contract enforcement, but it all connected back to the game. Same with cops and lawyers and banks. Same with jails. It all relied on the game. Our food came from the game. With just some words to the game system, people could make a contract enforced with all the power of AI, The Game and nano. No one could break a contract no matter how minor unless they were willing to starve to death to escape it, and even then they’d probably get forced into a pod. Conversely, in a society where the game mechanics made sure everyone kept their word, there was no way to have any trust outside of the system. We didn’t have a court system anymore. Or lawyers. The closest thing to cops we had now were GMs. Real life was all black market.
Inside the game, we had no control over anything. Slaves to the game as my dad would say. Only the game mechanics kept us honest, and so outside of the game we had no trust.
I believed my dad. Not really because of his philosophizing but because I knew that good, upstanding player citizens could be at least as ruthless, vicious and aggressive as any black market hustler I read about in the histories. It wasn’t scruples that kept them from breaking limbs or worse like a hard case criminal. It was the fact that they could turf out their leg breaking enforcement to the game. Or, do it themselves inside the game if they just wanted simple payback. PvP meant that corporal punishment had made a comeback.
It was usually like that with the things my father told me. If you took out all the big words and explanations, he often just explained why history usually amounted to different examples of a boot stomping on a face. He was a grim and jaded bastard for such a huge idealist.
“Well, I don’t know about buying meal inserts. But I could be interested in buying something. For my Roll Up.” I said.
“What do you mean?” said Guttmacher.
“Your pod can give Party Member options on Roll Up?”
“Sure. You a member of The Party?” he laughed. “You got a guild badge?”
“No. But I heard that there are other ways.” I said.
Guttmacher looked us over and sighed. “You aren’t carrying anywhere close to the number of meal inserts you’d need to get me to do something as illegal as that.”
I nodded and took off my backpack, reached in and slowly withdrew the nano. Guttmacher swallowed. That bottle represented years of painstaking scrimping and saving. Years of never eating more or better than I had to. Years of never using my pod just for fun. Shaving my basic nano-income as a minor to the bone and sometimes beyond for years. All of it to get my shot at escaping a lifetime of grinding in the beginner’s area.
“Here. I’m just looking to get a fair shot to get out of the beginner’s area. Do we have a deal?”
Nano behaves so oddly. It didn’t wobble or bounce at all when I dropped the bottle down onto his desk. It just stuck like it was metal and the desk was a powerful magnet.
“Did you steal this? Kill someone?” He asked with a calculating look. He wasn’t asking because he cared what crimes I might have done but because he was worrying about what kind of problems came along with this nano.
“No. That is all mine. Seven years of saving. Seven years.”
He looked me in the eyes and must have seen something because he reached for the bottle. I put my hand on it first.
“What?”
“What do I get for this?” I asked.
“If that is all nano… You can get the full members package. Everything up till a Guild Leader’s heir package. I can’t do that without a real Leader’s Heir Badge. But the package is great. Low penalties on transferring stats between abilities. Top range on random outcomes on bonuses. A gear package designed to help with whatever beginner’s quest you draw, and gold. Two bonus skills. And, of course, your luck modifier will be at least two standard deviations higher than the norm,” Guttmacher rattled off in salesman mode.
I took my hand off the bottle. This was what I had been suffering for for years. My shot.
Guttmacher reached for the bottle again. This time, Jude stopped him. He looked at me.
“Miles, you don’t have to do this. We can be a team like always.” He pleaded.
“Jude, what kind of team can we be if I’m stuck in the beginner’s area?”
“You can contract under me. You grind for me, and I’ll strive for the both of us. You know I can do well enough to get you out of the Beginner’s Area in half the time. And you know I’d treat you well. You’d have it as good as can be in the Crib.”
Guttmacher held his breath worrying that he was going to lose his prize. He had nothing to worry about.
“So I grind for thirty years instead of sixty? This is so much better. We can do it together. And if I’m stuck in the area what about IRL? Huh? You know what the discount is on loot from the Crib to get things IRL. Thirty years living on basic nano and minimum meal inserts? I’ve done that for seven years. No.”
Jude took his hand off the bottle and sighed.
This time, Guttmacher was slower to take the bottle in his greedy hands, worrying that there would be some other last-minute snafu.
“You not buying the same?” Guttmacher asked Jude.
“No. Don’t need to buy it.” He said and pulled out his Party Youth badge.
Guttmacher grunted and led us to the pods. I was on my way.
CHAPTER TWO
The pods were set up in what had once been a gymnasium. There were three of the devices laid out in an isosceles triangle. The incongruent end was a primary pod with a full controller station to the side of the transparent lid. The GM logged in to the controller station allowing the station to confirm his identity and authority via a tiny thread of nano that snaked into his tear duct as he put his head on a chin rest set to his height.
“Guttmacher 845321-Iota - x-ray - here as game master of record for the permanent roll up of Miles Boone according to all relevant local, state and federal regulations and laws pertaining thereto and in line with holding case Meier v Civilization.” The GM nodded for me to get in the pod.
I dropped my backpack and stepped into the pod. My clothes dissolved away as I lay down on my back leaving me naked coated from the neck down in the silver of full purpose nano. Encased in nano one could see that years of want had left me rangy and wiry.
“This is a little more invasive and uncomfortable than a usual transition,” Guttmacher said by rote.
The nano crept up over my face. Usually, the
process is fast enough to be over before you realize that something other than air is being forced into your ear, nose, and mouth. This time, the nano was more like a syrup, and it felt like I was going to drown or choke but the nano wouldn’t let me struggle. It clamped down like steel over me. I forced myself to relax as it slipped into my nose and down my throat and into my ears. I knew it was coming towards my eyes. This was it. Seven years of sacrifice was going to pay off, and it felt like being buried alive.
“Exemption from usual protocol authorized. Guild badge non-responsive but confirmed under the authority of exemption 7843321 logged this date.” I heard Guttmacher command to get the primary pod to allow me access to Party options.
“I knew it! I knew it!” said a voice I knew, and my stomach dropped.
My eyes shifted to Jude. He looked more resigned than anything else and in that moment I knew I was screwed.
“Of course Miles Boone is a cheater. Nothing but a dirty cheater. Jude, I can’t believe you let yourself get dragged into this with Boone.” Said Maya Eastman.
Stuck in the pod with only a view of Guttmacher at the control station and Jude beside him I couldn’t see her but I didn’t need to. I knew exactly what she looked like. Long auburn hair, features that should have been beautiful but were too clenched and angry to live up to their potential. Heir to the Eastman clan branch of The Party and Jude’s girlfriend. Her guild badge would be prominently displayed as a bracelet, brooch or necklace. She should have just made it into a tiara so everyone would know she was guild royalty.
I tried to speak but couldn’t with nano lodged in my mouth. Only a muffled groan escaped. I have no idea what I would have said at that moment anyway. Only nano could have held me in place I was so angry. Mere steel would surely have melted and bent as years of frustration and sacrifice were about to be destroyed. Maya was a Party fanatic. She may have been a privileged heir, but she was also a true believer in the game system. A scion of a feudal clan didn’t see her advantages as the proof of how corrupt the system was. She understood her position as a reward for her and her family’s service. As the tools to fulfill her duty. I heard my father’s voice in my ears You would be surprised how impossible it is to teach someone something when their self-regard depends on not learning it. If someone’s wealth or position depends on not seeing something they won’t be able to see even an elephant in front of them. If she wasn’t so sure of the truth and goodness of her cause, I might have had a chance. I could bribe or plead. But Maya wouldn’t, no couldn’t bend. She likely even thought that turning me in would be for my own good. I think half the reason she was dating Jude was to prove that she was a decent person and that the system worked. She was willing to date some regular boy who just made it into the Party youth from the mass of us nobodies. A blowjob out of Noblesse Oblige is still a blowjob, I maniacally wanted to tell Jude as my mind spun from dying hopes and lack of oxygen due to a stalled transition.