Viridian Gate Online: Nomad Soul: A litRPG Adventure (The Illusionist Book 1)
Page 31
“Of singing a few bars of ‘Ave Maria,’ like I had in the choir, back in Empuriabrava, but I also had the sense—”
I shouted in incoherent fury, and the voice stopped for a moment.
“How do I stop my own internal monologue? Isn’t that—”
I stepped forward, focusing.
“Like I was stopping myself from existing, unless even these, my thoughts, weren’t me.”
The desk looked solid, but it was actually thousands of weightless pieces perfectly set into place. I waded through them like a pool full of Styrofoam and put my hand against the window.
“It was the end of the world, outside. The end of it all. The sun was red and twice its size. Nothing lived. The skyscrapers were melting. And I’d always known it would end this way. No matter how long I lived, no matter what I discovered or achieved, the world would end in fire.”
I swallowed and rested my forehead against the glass.
“There was nowhere left to go but back. I’d take the elevator downstairs and hug Pops, introduce him to my wife, and we’d talk about the years he’d missed. Better a lie than to face—”
I pushed and the window swung open. Hot, stinging wind ruffled my clothes. I stepped forward. The world turned.
I looked down at the approaching ground. I watched it come. There was nothing but my body and the rush of the wind.
My body hit. It broke. Blood squirted. Bone shattered. My heart stopped beating. There was only me.
I rose, disembodied, floating, and found myself on a narrow stone bridge. It was a nowhere place. Ruined arches stretched over the path, broken pieces floating and gently bumping into each other while mosses and lichen waged a silent war with the remaining mortar. The void stretched in every direction, darkness shifting over darkness, lit by flickers of blue ghost light. I was at the end of that path. In front of me stood a heavy leather-bound book on a stand, and I knew without knowing that it was the Illusory Grimoire, and within it were the collected secrets of Illusion magic. I willed myself forward and opened the cover.
There were only three words handwritten on the first page.
<<<>>>
<<<>>>
I TURNED TO THE NEXT page, but it was blank. So was the next page, and the page after that. I could feel the last pieces of me frittering away with every turn. The next 313 pages of the book were blank.
The last five pages were glued together, and page 315 read:
<<<>>>
<<<>>>
A SMALL CIRCULAR RECESS was cut into the glued pages, and in it sat a small white communion wafer. With the little sense of self I had left, I picked it out of the pages and brought it to the place my mouth should be.
The wafer melted on my tongue. It had no consistency and no flavor. It was, at best, the memory of bread, the symbol of something more, but it was enough. My name was Alan Campbell. I was born in Philadelphia, I spent my summers in Spain, I’m the first person to transfer his consciousness into a video game, and I plan to live to talk about it.
<<<>>>
Quest Update: Smoke and Mirrors
You successfully navigated the Halls of Illusion. In return, as your reward, you have received 1,000 XP and the Illusionist class kit.
<<<>>>
Level Up!
You have (15) undistributed stat points! Stat points can be allocated at any time.
You have (3) unassigned proficiency point! Proficiency points can be allocated at any time.
<<<>>>
I pulled up my character sheet. I needed every advantage I could get.
<<<>>>
<<<>>>
BADASS, I thought, remembering where I’d started only days before. My Spirit and Stamina regen were almost double what they’d been after my first level up. I put 1 point into Vitality to bring my Health up to 200, and a full 10 points into Spirit because I had spells to cast and people to fool. I put 2 points into Intelligence, partly by vanity, bringing my resistances up to 1%, and dumped the remaining 2 points into Constitution because I had yet to regret being able to run farther without stopping in this... in my new life, inside Viridia.
I also had a new tab available that had been grayed out until now.
<<<>>>
<<<>>>
YES. “Yes!” I shouted out loud. I only knew what two of the skills did, but I could see a lot of column three in Thalia’s future. In the meantime, I needed to survive. I checked the Hide skill.
<<<>>>
Skill: Hide
Makes the object impossible to target and difficult to notice after a relationship check. Higher levels increase transparency and duration. Some classes such as Enchanters are immune to the distracting effect, but not the concealment.
Skill Type/Level: Spell, Gesture Based/Initiate
Cost: Spirit cost scales with size and movement
Range: 1 meter
Cast Time: 5 seconds
Cooldown: None
Effect 1: 10% bonus to Stealth while active.
Effect 2: As long as not seen by target, reduces base failure rate of Illusion spells by 50%.
<<<>>>
That wasn’t going to work. I was pretty sure Thalia hated my guts. If the concealment was relationship based, I might as well run down the middle of the street without pants on. I put another point into Vocalize, allowing me to mimic sounds and other people’s voices. I also dropped a point into Refract and Mirror. I’d probably earned some skills and passives tied to being an Illusionist, but I was short on time. The prefect had warned me I’d piss someone off someday. Distance was my friend.
And then I’d get even. For Erik, Horace, June, and even for Jeff, who was probably logged out already.
I closed all the windows and looked down at the grimoire. The wafer was still there, stuck in the page. I smiled and closed the book gently, with a touch of reverence, then I stepped around it to reach the exit. The things that waited in the dark didn’t scare me anymore.
THE SIGH THAT HAD BECOME a breeze and then a wind finally became a storm and broke over New Viridia. Lightning split the darkened sky, and wind howled past the walls, buildings, and guard towers. The rain fell hard and sideways, driven in sheets by the violent gusts.
“Find him!” Thalia shouted over the wind. “He can’t have gotten far!” She clutched her arms against the freezing downpour.
“Yes, Mistress!” the Sicarii answered as one. They boosted and pulled each other up onto rooftops and fanned out in the direction the Imperial agent had run.
Thalia didn’t need help. She blasted herself up the wall.
When all the assassins were gone, Horace opened his milky eyes. He crawled over to where June was lying and cradled her head in his lap. “It’s okay, now, Junebug. They’re gone now.”
Her left eye fluttered open. Her right was swollen shut. “Horace?” She smiled. “You’re alive. I’m so glad.”
Then she died, but Horace held her a while longer.
SANDRA WAITED WHILE her boss made up his mind.
“And you’re positive they can clean this up?”
“Say the word and this goes away. No Board, no media circus, no weeping mother on TV with Osmark Technologies in the caption.”
“I’ll still have to inform the Board, Sandra. A man died. A man I thought you got along with.”
Sandra raised an eyebrow at him. “Sentiment, Rob?”
He laughed. “Damn, you’re cold. Fine, make the call.”
Sandra made a note on her clipboard. “You won’t regret it.” She left Osmark’s office, holding the clipboard to her chest. The security guard she’d taken down earlier was guarding the hallway. “Mr. Dougherty,” she said, dipping her head.
“Ma’am,” he said, surprised.
“Sorry about earlier,” she said.
His face reddened. “That’s fine, ma’am. Frank explained we would have hurt Mr. Campbell if we moved him. Is he all right?”
“He’s fine,” Sandra said. And thank you, Frank.
She was almost
to her office when Dougherty cleared his throat. “Um, Ms. Bullard? That move you used on me, is there any way you could...”
She smiled. “There’s a gym on the corner of West Carson and Crenshaw in Torrance. You know it?”
“No ma’am, but I can find it.”
“A couple of us get together on Saturday mornings, ten to noon.”
“I’ll be there, ma’am. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She smiled at him. He was one of her people. He probably wouldn’t sue her, and if he showed up to the gym he’d have a hard time building a case.
She stepped into her office. It wasn’t until she’d closed the door and leaned back against it that she let herself go. The clipboard dropped to her side. Her eyes welled up. She shivered.
Yeah, I got along with Alan, you fucktard, she thought. Her teeth chattered. The last time she’d done CPR on someone had been in Southeast Asia, working a protective detail when her primary was hit with a gene-targeted virus. The woman had gone into convulsions, then spit up blood. Sandra had fought to keep her alive, all the while praying to God, Buddha, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster—anyone who’d listen, really—that that crap wasn’t Ebola or SPM-2, or fucking radiation poisoning because the Russians thought that shit was funny and they’d been eating the same food.
The woman died. Then she’d been arrested by the Burmo-Thai federal police and interrogated for two days before the embassy got her out. People rarely had good memories of giving CPR; hers were worse.
She took a deep breath, then another. She’d talk to her handler, maybe get some counseling with an Agency shrink. In the meantime, she had a job to do. She walked over to her desk, pulled her top drawer out, reached under it to remove the scrambler she’d hidden there, and plugged it into her cellphone. Her office was swept for bugs once a month by Os-Tech, and shortly thereafter by her. She dialed the number from memory.
“Torrance Custom Photo, this is Suzie, how can I help you?”
“Hi Suzie, this is Sandra Bullard from the other day. I wanted to check if my order is ready.”
“Sure thing, ma’am. Can you tell me what kind of prints they were?”
Sandra felt herself relax into the routine. “Glamour shots,” she answered. If she’d said passport photos, an armed agent would have been there to extract her within thirty minutes.
“Just a moment,” Suzie said.
The line clicked. There was a series of beeps and tones as the scrambler on her phone and her handler’s synchronized, then Brett’s voice came on.
“Piper, this is Sandbag. I say potato?”
“I say ivory.”
“Go for Sandbag, or did you just need to hear my voice?”
“I need a cleanup at the Stanton campus, building forty-three. One toe tag with adjusted time stamp and copies to local, federal, and DoD. I’ll meet them onsite and talk them through the arrangements.”
“Jesus, Piper! This wasn’t supposed to be that kind of job! What happened?”
“Tin Man is compromised.”
“Compromised by whom? Russia, China, the Brits?”
“By us. As of an hour ago, Tin Man works for the United States Government. We own him. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
“Okay, Piper, black cab is inbound. I won’t jinx it by saying congratulations—”
“Then don’t,” Sandra said. “Piper out.”
She hung up the phone and sighed. Whatever calm she’d felt reaching out to the Agency evaporated at the sound of Sandbag’s voice. Brett was never going to be as good a handler as she had been, which was a shame because she could use a confidant right now. She put the scrambler back in its hiding place, put her clipboard into a locked drawer, and left her office. She needed to go check on Jeff. He couldn’t be there when the team came in.
THANATOS WAS HALFWAY through his third reading of the Hyperion Cantos, in the Southern Annex of the Empirical Annex, when the great double doors to the Necropolis swung open and two of his Vogthar servants walked through, dragging a corpse between them. He sighed. This had been a day for interruptions.
The Vogthar were taller than his chosen avatar, each over seven feet tall without counting the matte-black horns that curved upward from either side of their heads, above their elf-like ears. They wore gray armor that blended in well with the landscape. Their lipless mouths worked silently, as if continually in prayer, and their eyes stared, vacant. Thanatos had saved them from genocide, but Morsheim itself took its toll on their sanity.
Thanatos closed his book and left it floating by the shelf. He stepped forward and by a small bending of space crossed the length of the nave to reach his two servants. The corpse was charred, just greasy ash clinging to a skeleton that was barely holding together. Its owner had died in great pain, which usually made them useless for his purposes. He could have processed ten thousand of them without looking up from his book. “Why have you brought me this thing?” he asked, both curious and irritated.
The Vogthar were silent.
Thanatos crouched before the suspended corpse and wiped his hand across its face, reversing the damage.
“Oh.”
JEFF OPENED HIS EYES and tried to scream, but no sound came out. He was being held up, somehow. A young man—mid-twenties, dressed like some kind of necromancer or whatever the kids thought was cool these days—was staring at him. The young man’s lips moved, but Jeff couldn’t hear.
Oh God, I’m still in the game, Jeff thought. He could move his eyes, his mouth, and his jaw, but he couldn’t breathe. His body felt like it was still on fire, from when that woman murdered him, but it was cold at the same time, like snow on an open wound. The whole world was a silence waiting to be filled.
The young man reached to either side of his head and moved his hands like he was adjusting dials, and Jeff’s ears were opened.
“Can you hear me now?” the young man said.
Yes, Jeff mouthed.
The young man clapped his hands in glee. “Excellent! My name is Thanatos.”
Jeff’s eyes widened, and he tried to lean away.
“I have to tell you, Professor Berkowitz, I was expecting Alan Campbell to be the first real, live human to be dragged across my doorstep, but you’ll do. You’ll do indeed.”
The young man stood and raised his hand, and Jeff was lifted from the ground with it, as if on invisible strings. The pain was unrelenting, fresh and raw with every moment. His baked lungs filled with frigid air.
“Help!” Jeff wheezed.
<<<>>>
Log out: Yes/No?
<<<>>>
Before he could select “Yes,” Thanatos swiped the words out of the air with his hand and sent them sliding down the nearby wall, out of reach.
“Do be cooperative, Professor. There will be pain, but you won’t remember any of this,” the Overmind said. “You of all people should understand. It’s for Science!” His eyes glowed green. “Let’s begin.”
Books, Mailing List, and Reviews
IF YOU LOVED VGO: CATACLYSM and would like stay in the loop about the latest book releases, promotional deals, and upcoming book giveaways be sure to subscribe to the Shadow Alley Press mailing list: Shadow Alley Press Mailing List Sign up now and get a free copy of our bestselling anthology, Viridian Gate Online: Side Quests! Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time. You can also connect with us on our Facebook Fan Page: Shadow Alley Press
You can find even more books and awesome recommendations over on our Facebook Group Page, Fantasy Nation! Home to best Epic, Urban, and LitRPG Fantasy around!
Word-of-mouth and book reviews are crazy helpful for the success of any writer—or in, in our case, Publishing Company. If you really enjoyed reading about Jack and his crew (or VGO in general), please consider leaving a short, honest review—just a couple of lines about your overall reading experience. You can click here to leave a review at Amazon, and thank you in adva
nce: Viridian Gate Online: Nomad Soul (The Illusionist Book 1)
Looking for more Viridian Gate Online? Continued the adventure right this minute and get the book that started it all—Viridian Gate Online: Cataclysm (Book 1)!
Already a fan of the original series? Well, then check out the next book in the VGO Expanded Universe, Viridian Gate Online: Firebrand (The Firebrand Series Book 1). Or keep reading to take a sneak peek!
OCTOBER, 2042
New worlds get new kings, and that’s exactly what Abby thinks she’s found in her boss’ hacked code.
With a cataclysmic asteroid careening toward Earth, the VRMMORPG project, Viridian Gate Online, has become more than just a game, and Abby thinks her boss, Robert Osmark, wants to be more than just its founding father.
Now, Abby holds a hacked key to the kingdom that could earn her a punishment worse than death. To uncover the secret that drug lords and corrupt politicians paid millions for, Abby must dive into the game she helped create and team up with one of its AI creations. It’s a race against the clock as she tries to discover what’s hidden in the secret code before Osmark can crown himself ruler over all that remains of humanity.
ONE: Apocalypse Hacking
THE CLICKS AND CLACKS of my keystrokes reverberating off the empty chairs and standing desks at Osmark Tech were the only sounds, aside from the hammering of my heart. I’d been afraid before, working for Osmark, but never this scared. If I was right, they would do much worse than kill me for what I was about to commit.
My cursor lingered over the “deploy to prod” button. Under normal working hours, my fresh lines of code would’ve been peer-reviewed, sent through the sanity checker, unit tested, then deployed to staging. But eight months straight of crunch coupled with the impending doom of the planet left everyone eager to get to their capsules when Osmark dismissed us not an hour before.
I glanced around the large open space one more time to ensure everyone had in fact gone, my heart still jackhammering away. My finger trembled as I pressed and held the left-click down. I could still back out, forget what I’d read, forget I had seen what Osmark had planned.