by Rick Scott
“So Citadel’s true location won’t be discovered.”
“By who?” I ask.
“The machines,” he says. “The Builders.”
A chill runs down my spine. Crap, I nearly forgot about them. He’s supposed to go and fight one, or something. “What exactly are they? Did they really make the city? Why are we hiding from them?”
“Okay, look, stop with the questions,” Maxis says. “Just let me speak.”
He takes a deep breath, and we both shut up to listen.
“As far as we know, yes, the Builders originally made Citadel. They also made all of this.” He waves his hands at our surroundings. “We think they were created to restore the Earth after the war or something, but we’re not sure. The only thing we do know is that we’ve lost control over them. They’re sentient AIs now, and in worlds like this, they’ve become like gods. As for how they’re connected to the game, that’s another mystery. Some people think we tried to use the game as a way to control them again, to make them build a world with rules where we could gain an advantage over them. Other people think the game is what made us lose control of them in the first place, and that the Builders were somehow infected by it and are now replicating it mindlessly. Either way, these AIs are basically recreating the Earth into the worlds we know as Crystal Shards.”
My stomach does a little dip, and Gilly and I share a frightful glance.
“As for how you’re here, you’re not. Not really. At least, not all of you. Your bodies are still back in Citadel, but your consciousness has been transferred to a nano-tech body. You’re flesh and blood, sorta. As much as the nano-tech can replicate of that, anyway.”
“Are you saying this is a real body?” I say, thumping against my chest.
“As real as it can be, copied from your character. Stats, abilities, and all.”
Holy crap! I think back to when I saw Val Helena materializing. It all makes sense now. We weren’t logging in. We were being printed just like a nano-processor! “I think I’m going to pass out.”
“Which brings me back to why I’m so pissed at you for being here, Ryan.” His countenance darkens with a scowl. “Have you got any idea what trouble you’ve caused? You were supposed to stay with Mom, man. That’s the main reason I felt comfortable doing any of this! I knew that, no matter what happened to me, you’d still be there for her. But now, she’s going to see them come for you, and who knows what that’s going to do to her . . .”
“Come for me?” What is he talking about?
He shakes his head. “Why do you think I stayed away from home so much? I didn’t want Mom to know what I was doing.”
“What do you mean ‘come for me’?”
“Your body,” Val Helena says. “They transfer your real body into stasis once you make the jump here.”
My blood freezes as I remember the person in the capsule during the meeting I followed Mike to. Was that me now? Is that what happens to you when you really go to the surface?
“Is that going to happen to me, too?” Gilly asks, looking pale.
Maxis nods. “Probably. Unless you’re already plugged into stasis. That’s becoming more and more common these days.”
Gilly goes quiet, and I can only imagine what she must be thinking.
“How come no one knows about any of this stuff?” I say, almost angry. “I’ve never heard of any of it before. None of it!”
“Because the world would fall apart if everyone knew the truth, Ryan. So they mask it,” Maxis says. “When it happens, people just think it’s evictions, and the bodies are being taken to the vats.”
I suddenly have a grisly vision of my mother thinking I’m dead. “Who does all this?”
“The board,” Maxis says. “But only a select few know what’s really going on.”
My skin grows cold again. I think back to Gilly’s dad, and hope she doesn’t mention who he is right now. If anyone knows what’s going on, it would be him. How she’s processing all of this, I don’t even know.
“When they come for you, they blame some glitch in the system, and the whole family has to sign a waiver not to talk about it.” Maxis shakes his head. “Mom’s going to be gutted, man. Crap, you’re such an idiot!”
“Hey! I was just doing my best to save her, okay?” Hot anger lights inside my stomach. “Speaking of which? Why haven’t you done anything for her? If you’re Maxis, then where’s all your damn money? Don’t you have millions by now?”
“I keep telling you,” he says. “You don’t know what money really is.”
“Then what the heck is it?” I shout.
“It’s this,” Maxis says, and holds out his hand. Slowly, a sparkling gray sand fills his palm. “It’s nano, Ryan. That’s what real money is. Every credit is a nanite. Or it’s supposed to be. It makes our food, our air, our water. Each person requires over 3000 of them a day, just to survive. And our city has just about run out.”
“What?” Val Helena says.
“You want to know how much money I really have?”
Maxis wishes to trade with you.
Maxis offers you 20,126,743 credits.
What the heck?
“It’s all make-believe money, Ryan,” he says. “We can’t spend it. Not in the real world, anyway. Why do you think they keep pushing us to live in those damn games so much? And that buying anything in the real world is so expensive? It’s cheaper. It avoids us spending the real money.”
“What?”
“With the shortage, every citizen has a hard limit now. And it’s down to 700k. You’ve probably gone and blown most of yours on fixing your damn legs.”
700k? I remember that number now from that meeting. I also remember that weird warning I got about a spending limit. “So, you’re saying that even if I had gotten the money, I wouldn’t have been able to buy Mom’s treatment?”
“No,” he says. “If it were possible, I’d have done it a long time ago. For Mom to get her treatment, five other people would eventually have to die. And no one’s going to make that kind of call, even though they promised me they would this time. It’s a complete lie. And it doesn’t even matter, anyway. All the credits in the world aren’t going to save Mom.”
The floor opens up beneath me as everything I’ve worked for comes undone. I’ve been chasing fool’s gold all this time? I look to Val Helena, anger building in my heart. “Val, did you know about this?”
She shakes her head. “I had no idea. I swear. What does this all mean?”
“It means that, if we don’t bring more nano back to the city this run, it won’t matter if we save our mother or not.”
“What?” I say.
“Because in six months, everyone in Citadel will be dead. Including us.”
Author’s Note
Thanks for reading right through to the end. And even for reading this! I hope you enjoyed Book 1 of Crystal Shards Online.
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Shard Warrior
A LitRPG Novel
Crystal Shards Online Book 2
By
Rick Scott
Cover Art and Design by Alberto Besi
Copyright © 2018 by Rick Scott
All Rights Reserved.
VER 1.00
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Prologue
Bruce Peters was numb.
His
blood chilled as the technicians closed the lid to the stasis chamber and sealed his daughter’s body with a pneumatic hiss of air. His Jill, his little Gilly, was now a barely living husk that would be preserved and stored, awaiting the moment, if and when, her consciousness finally returned. If it ever did. The thought gutted him.
And it was all his fault.
Barbara hadn’t stopped crying since the technicians entered their home early this morning. But Bruce had known they were coming long before his wife. As the board chair, he’d gotten the call at 2 a.m. from Dennis. The latest figures to undergo transition were in.
He should have known something was wrong when Dennis hesitated.
The software engineer was typically matter-of-fact with his reports, but this time, he’d told Bruce to brace himself. When he’d heard the news that his own daughter was among the numbers, he’d nearly collapsed.
“We should have paid more attention to what she was doing,” Barbara sobbed into his arm. “We should have watched what she was doing with that boy . . . !”
Her words pierced him, though he knew she wasn’t blaming him directly. She should be, though. Bruce knew everything about that boy now. But it was all in retrospect. He’d been too preoccupied with keeping the city afloat to concern himself with it before. Now, however, the warning signs were blinding in his rearview.
Ryan Roberts. Mike Roberts’s younger brother. Bruce had only been vaguely aware of the resemblance when they’d met a few days ago. Now, it was painfully clear. And the chances were too slim for coincidence. What was this really? Some kind of message from Mike? Insurance, perhaps? Had he lured his daughter to the surface to ensure Bruce would come through with his promise? To ensure that his mother would receive her treatment in the end?
Or was this simply karma?
Payback for everything he’d put that family through all those years ago.
That thought shook him even more.
Whatever this was, the damage was done, and the outcome firmly out of his control. But that wouldn’t stop him from trying to change it. This was his daughter. His only child.
“I want to see the others,” Bruce said to the technicians as his heart hardened with resolve. “I need to know who’s up there with her. I need to know who’s going to keep my little girl alive.”
Chapter 1: A New Reality
I wake up to the unusual but pleasant feel of Gilly nuzzling into my side. For a moment, I think I’m back home in my tin-can habitat, buried miles below the ground, and that Gilly is somehow sleeping next to me on my dirty mattress of a bed. But as my consciousness stirs, I realize that I’m as far from that as I could possibly be.
I’m on the surface. In the real world.
Yet still in the game.
I bring up my character stats on my HUD, just to make sure I didn’t dream it all. A window opens in my vision, superimposed over my naked eyes.
Name: Reece
Class: Ninja
Level: 75
Strength: 6+25
Dexterity: 80+5
Agility: 80+5
Intelligence: 4
Mind: 6
Vitality: 16 +20
HP: 902/902
Stamina: 247/247
TP: 149/149
I pull up my gear next.
Koga Mask : +5 Shadow Magic +5 TP
Koga Scarf: +5 Dodge +5 Evasion
Koga Gi: +75 HP +10 STR +10 VIT
Koga Tekko: +25 HP +5 STR +5 DEX
Koga Hakama: +75 HP +5 STR +10 VIT
Koga Kyahan: +25 HP +5 STR +5 AGL
Dark Steel Kunai: +3 Damage +10 DEX
Dark Steel Kunai: +3 Damage +10 DEX
Yup, not a dream. I’m still a Ninja.
Ever since Mike, my brother—the PvP king known as Maxis—dropped the bombshell that the world is nothing like we thought it was, that our home is in danger and we’ll all be dead in six months unless we do something to save it, it’s pretty much all I can think about.
But no one’s really said anything about it yet.
Everyone’s still trying to process, dealing with it in their own way.
Even Val Helena seemed taken aback by what my brother had to say, and she’s been here before. The eight-foot-tall goddess of a half-giant retreated to her own thoughts in solitude, sitting on the bank of the stream to watch the water trickle by.
Maxis and Rembrandt, his friend from one of the tech-world Shards who seemed to know just as much as my brother did, took off to go scout through the forest—or maybe just to get away from us all—before we could ask more questions.
Gilly and I, meanwhile, found a pine tree to sit against, but we haven’t spoken, either. After five minutes of silence, I realized Gilly was asleep, perhaps overcome by the ordeal we’d just gone through to reach the safe zone, or the shock of learning that back home we’re soon to become living corpses, and that this world, the one we thought was a game, is now all so very real.
I had dozed for a bit myself, but now I’m wide awake.
And full of questions.
The coarse bark of the tree itches through my Ninja armor as I lean back and gaze up at a night sky full of stars. I’ve never actually seen them before. Not for real.
Yet here they are.
I wish my mother could see this . . . and then I wonder how she’ll react when they come to take my body away. According to Mike, we’ll all be put in some sort of stasis. My heart sinks when I think about the agony she’ll go through, watching my lifeless body be carted off, not knowing how, or why. I need to get back to her as soon as possible. To let her know that I’m all right. To save her.
We all need to get back—with these nanites, or whatever it is we need to find to save her and everyone else. But as for how, I just don’t know yet. There are still so many questions that need answers.
A rustle of underbrush draws my attention and wakes Gilly at my side.
I stiffen for a second, but relax when I see it’s just my brother and Rembrandt returning.
“We need to roll out,” Maxis says, looking at me over dark shades perched at the tip of his nose. His black scarf is still securely around his mouth and neck, and his red karate outfit is stained with mud. I’m not familiar with the class he plays, so I bring up his stats on the party list, and then check out his gear to see exactly what it does.
Maxis Level 85 Karate Master
HP 2392/2392
STAM: 430/430
TP: 380/380
Onyx Shades: +0 Stats
Hero’s Scarf: +50 Block +50 Parry
Infinite Challenger Gi: +450 HP +30 Block +30 Counter +30 Parry
Black Belt: +20 Block +20 Counter +20 Parry
Dojo Trousers: +250 HP +25 Block +25 Counter
Master’s Sandals: +0 Stats
What the heck?
Some of his gear has zero stats? Does he just wear it for looks? But the rest of it looks pretty interesting, though. I guess Karate Masters must focus more on blocks and parries. His level seems consistent with the classes from Nasgar, too—the game world I come from—which means the Shards must all share some kind of common architecture, which makes sense, since we’re all here together now.
I check out Rembrandt next. He too is wearing shades, but the mirrored variety and is from a cyberpunk-based game. His long black-leather trench coat conceals a black armored vest and fatigues underneath. He has a goatee like my brother, but it’s only just visible against his deep ebony skin.
Rembrandt Level 85 Gunslinger
HP 1247/1247
STAM: 830/830
TP: 290/290
Mirror Shades: +10 Critical +20 Aim
Kingpin’s Chain: +10 DEX +50 STAM
Grade 5 Combat Vest: +50 HP +40 DEX +30 Aim +250 STAM
Flak Fatigues: +50 HP +20 DEX +250 STAM
Survival Boots: +25% Sprinting Speed +100 Stamina
Tec 12 Autopistol: +30 DEX +20 Aim
Tec 12 Autopistol: +30 DEX +20 Aim
Wow! He barely has more hit points than
I do, but way more stamina. I suppose that’s to be expected from a ranged-class that fires a hundred bullets a second, though. And he might be min-maxed like I am too, but with all his stats put into Dexterity and offense where mine is placed into Agility and Evasion.
“Hey, you paying attention?” Maxis says again, snapping his fingers in front of my face. “We need to go. Saddle up.”
“Where are we going?” Gilly asks as she rises next to me. She still has sleep in her big green eyes, and her short dark hair is matted on the side from where she lay against me. Her dark blue mage robes are creased, and her witch’s hat sits crooked on her head, just above her slightly pointed ears—all of which remind me that we’re not exactly in the game world anymore. Still, even disheveled as she is, Gilly is one of the prettiest girls I know.
Both in-game and out.
“We need to find a village or something,” Maxis says. “I think I got my bearings. There should be one further north of here, if we skirt the perimeter of the wild zone.”
“What after that?” I ask. “How do we get more of that nano-stuff, and how do we get it to Citadel?”
“I’m still figuring that part out,” Maxis says, “but you two are staying in the village.” He points to us. “Where it’s safe.”
“What?”
“No way are you two getting killed out here on my watch. And that’s final.”
“Now, hold on. We need to talk about this some more,” booms a deep feminine voice from above us, “don’t you think?”
I look behind me to see Val Helena in all her glory. Her neck-length platinum blonde hair still looks perfect, and her iron crown still sits level on her head. Her red leather sports bra-like armored top and leather-stripped skirt look less vibrant than they did in the game world, but they still have the same effect; making her already imposing, muscle-ripped body stand out even more.
It must have quite the effect on my brother, because for once, he seems lost for words as he stares up at her.