by Cate Ryan
Pantheon VR (#1)
Shadows of Mount Olympus
Cate Ryan
Copyright © 2018 by Cate Ryan. All Right Reserved.
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.
Contents
Chapter 1. Make This Chapter Awesome (Heading 1 style)
Chapter 2. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 3. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 4. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 5. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 6. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 7. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 8. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 9. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 10. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 11. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 12. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 13. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 14. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 15. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 16. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 17. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 18. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 19. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 20. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 21. Make This Chapter Awesome
Chapter 22. Make This Chapter Awesome
Author’s Note
Other Books By Cate Ryan
Chapter 1
“Your time starts now.” Taysia heard the words, and it was as if adrenalin pumped through her veins. She had just an hour to put together something amazing.
>You can do it Tassie.
>You’ve got this.
Messages flooded in, but Taysia ignored them all. With a quick movement she snatched up the first of her needed ingredients. Three daisies. That would help a little. She looked around the area. Shizuku Tani always used this type of map for the comps. She’d won the last seven. She hoped she could win an eighth.
Blueberries, wood, silk. Zeroing in on the southern point of the map Taysia made blueberries her first target. Wood was easy to find. Silk could be a little trickier. She gripped the dagger at her hip. She would need it.
>What you gonna make today?
>I hope she wins.
>She will. She always wins.
“Right now, our returning champ looks like she’s on the hunt for blueberries, ignoring the other contestants as they pick through the starting chests. Oh wait, a moment,” the commentator paused. Taysia continued, rushing through the wooded map, pink leaves attached to purple wooden branches towered over her head, daisies the color of cotton candy. Orange grass. She didn’t take notice of it. She was looking for the radiant blue that would indicate her blueberries.
The commentator continued, “Wait, the American champ is out of the competition. Eliminated by newcomer Waldren. That’s it, America is out of this competition. We can pack our bags and go home. Looks like Tassie will take this one home.”
Taysia grinned as she rushed past two other players battling with their own weapons. She hurried on. Things looked good for her, she needed to make sure it stayed that way.
Blueberries. She smiled and grabbed a handful.
+6 Blueberries
Flashed across her vision, then disappeared. That was a good crop. A few more like that and she could head to the crafting station.
She came across another of the small bushes.
+4 Blueberries
Not as good. She sighed.
+5 Blueberries
Followed by,
+4 Blueberries
That should be enough.
Taysia pulled the dagger from her inventory, it appeared in her hand as soon as she thought it. She hacked a small branch from the tree with ease. She hadn’t made it to the top because of her strength.
+2 Pine
Damn, that wouldn’t help much, she needed oak, she could make do with willow if she had to, but pine wouldn’t cut it in the finals.
She looked around the clearing and caught sight of a thick pink trunk. Resting on the orange grass. She couldn’t be sure, it looked like oak.
+4 Oak
The message scrolled across her eyes as she hacked into the tree. A second hit.
+3 Oak
A third.
+5 Oak
Another two slashes with her dagger yielded.
+8 Oak
Satisfied she slipped the dagger into its sheath and continued. Slightly winded she hunted for the hardest part of her outfit. Without which she could not win. With it, she would almost certainly win.
“Tassie seems in great form tonight. She’s just collected some oak. We’re not sure what she’s going to create for us but it’s sure to wow the judges. She always wows the judges.”
“Mute commentary,” Taysia whispered.
She surveyed the area, silent aside from the rustle of the leaves. Too quiet. But familiar. Taysia breathed deeply an aroma of strawberries on the air, mixed with just a little vanilla. Despite the warm air, she shivered under the trees.
There should be a path to the east, she ran through the mess of trees hoping to spot it. Finally, Taysia caught sight of the path, twisting off towards the edge of the map. She followed the path almost to the edge of the map, the area around her silent except for the wildlife. Other competitors would have stuck close to the main stage. Suddenly, she stopped. The horizon offered a perfect illusion, she couldn’t tell where the map ended except for the red zone that appeared just in front of her current position. This was where she’d find it. Silk.
The countdown on her display read 22:33 counting down to zero. She’d need to hurry to make it back in time.
With a practiced step she pressed her hand against the illusion. It was nearly solid. Enough haptic feedback to tell her to stop. Not enough to stop her movement entirely. This was where it got tricky though. With agility that most players didn’t have she scaled the side of the illusion one foot after the other, hands pressing higher until the orange grass swayed far below her. She didn’t have time to look, it took every ounce of her effort to keep herself climbing the map, one wrong move and she would be eliminated.
As the map curved into a perfect dome so did Taysia. Her body almost horizontal. Finally, she spotted it. The slight glint against the horizon. Silk.
She scuttled forward, lost sight of it. Then found it again. With one final push forward, she grabbed at the strand.
+45 Silk
It should be enough. She continued her scuttle grabbing a little more silk along the way. When she judged herself to be above the crafting stations, she let go of the invisible wall and dropped. She fell. Wind whooshed past her face. She could survive. Just. She hoped.
With a thud she landed on the hard orange grass in a clearing. 12 bench tops filled the clearing sitting in a loose circle. Four were already occupied. She rushed for the fifth. Plenty of tools, not that she really needed them. The game took care of the specifics for her. With a thought the silk, blueberries and wood transferred from her inventory and appeared on the bench top. She could tell it was the last round by the eight empty benches. There had been twelve participants to start with. With no time to dwell on who of the 12 had been eliminated, she pulled up the recipes from the bench top scrolling through them quickly. With a click all the recipes she was missing ingredients for disappeared. Leaving her with just three options. One was a weapon that used only the wood. Not helpful. Th
e second, a low-level kitchen item that used just the wood and blueberries. Finally, the item she was looking for. A silken dress with tiny carved wooden accents and a pink hue.
With another thought she selected the item and it began to craft, the piles of silk disappearing first, then the blueberries, mixed together until a pink silk pile appeared, it shifted into a new shape before her eyes. Suddenly it looked more like a dress. Finally, the wood shifted, cut into smaller and smaller shapes. Tiny delicate flowers and knots that adorned the bodice. Her own character stats would determine the quality of the finished product. Thankfully her stats were well above average. The value range for the strawberry silk dress was great, a poor-quality version was barely worth more than the average cotton outfit. A well-crafted version could be worth well over 1000 gold. Hers should fall into that range.
In her peripheral two of the competitors had completed their creations. She heard rather than saw, a pop as one of them disappeared from the competition. His score was too low to be crowned the winner.
Her own outfit would be complete soon. The final touches were being done.
In a moment it sparkled complete on the bench. As Taysia reached for it, she instead felt the familiar tug as she was pulled from the game world. Instead of pale blue skin of her character she looked down at her own peachy fingers grasping at thin air.
She checked the game log. Odd. She hadn’t been thrown out because she’d lost. The opposite actually. She had won.
She thought ‘reconnect’, but nothing happened. Okay, she could do it manually, that was fine. As she flipped the manual switch nothing happened either, except for a ping that indicated a message.
“Taysia, you have received a new message, would you like me to read it to you?” the apartment AI echoed loudly in the small space.
“Yes, thank you.”
“There is an issue with the user profile Tassie. Please be patient while we work on this issue. This could take up to 24 hours to resolve. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Feel free to enjoy one of our other immersive experiences in the meantime.”
Taysia sighed. She flicked a quick message to her many followers,
>Sorry folks, technical issues with my profile. I should be back online in 24 hours.
The replies came through swiftly.
>That sucks!
> At least you won. Sorry you don’t get to party though.
> You should totally try a different game while you wait.
Taysia perked up at that, she could try a different game.
>Okay guys, what game should I try?
Hundreds of replies came hard and fast through her chat. One answer had overwhelming popularity though.
>Pantheon VR!
>Yeah, play Pantheon. We could be part of the same group and everything.
Taysia knew very little about the game except that it was fully immersive and had something to do with mythology. That sounded okay though.
>All right folks, I’ll make a poll, you can vote on what class I should pick, and I’ll play it for as much of the next 24 hours as I can handle.
That could end badly. She pulled up a list of the classes and quickly input a few to an online poll. Some classes were plenty familiar to her or easy to figure out like knight, ninja, mage some were more obscure like jaguar and oathtaker. So many classes that she couldn’t count them all and her followers added more to the poll every few seconds.
Her watchers though, voted quickly with the list fluctuating to begin with, with many classes with similar numbers. Slowly a few winners emerged. Illusionist stayed in top position for most of the voting, with immortal and shorn one right below it.
>Thanks guys, I’m gonna pick between the top 3.
A moment later she’d made her decision.
>I have to go with the majority here, so it looks like I’ll be an illusionist for the next 24 hours. Good choice folks.
Was it a good choice? Taysia had no idea. She didn’t know much about the illusionist except that it seemed like they relied on illusions.
Pantheon VR. Her vision filled with a cheesy image that mixed all the most popular ancient cultures together. A pyramid in the background, great white pillars for Greece, Aztec symbols and art, in the foreground three figures, each clad in traditional attire for the corresponding culture. To Taysia’s untrained eye they were clearly from different races but if anything else differed she couldn’t tell. The Aztec man shorter than Taysia had expected and stockier. The Egyptian woman had skin that shimmered a pale gray. The Greek man had wings sprouting from his shoulder blades but looked otherwise human. New account. New character.
The screen glistened before a blue world formed before her. She had no body. Only her mind. Several choices hovered in front of her non-corporeal form.
Races. That was the first choice she needed to make.
The choice came as almost a no brainer for her. She’d been playing a pixie for so long that she almost considered herself part pixie. She selected Fae hoping to find pixie under the subraces and was not disappointed. She looked down to find she had a body again, it didn’t look like hers, or her usual character. Instead of the sky-blue skin she had become accustomed with, her skin shimmered such a dark blue that she couldn’t tell where the black background ended, and her body began. The rest of her body appeared identical to the real world. Only, blue.
She paused, did she really want the dark blue skin and all that came with it? She flicked back to the main screen with her mind to consider the other options. Human, of course. That would be familiar, and it came with some decent bonuses. There was also Ljósálfar, which looked remarkably like a regular fantasy elf. She scrolled through the subraces noting a dark-skinned option (Svartálfar), like dark mud, as well as a lighter skinned choice and a shorter version that looked like it had been crossed with a dwarf (Dökkálfar). She also saw what looked like robots, half a dozen sub races listed under the heading of Vinti. That wasn’t for her. What about Dweorg? No, that didn’t sit quite right either. She flicked back to Pixie and pressed next.
[Do you want to accept your selection?]
[Yes]
The body remained corporeal and dark blue. The next screen asked her to choose her class.
Again, this was a simple choice. It took her a moment to find Illusionist until she realized she could search by letter. There were so many choices. She knew that from her poll, but seeing it laid out like that was more overwhelming.
[Please choose your starting spell]
A list of choices appeared before Taysia, each with an accompanying video showing them in action. She chose [Bolt of Energy] before continuing to the next screen. She’d played enough games to know that not a lot of creatures had resistance to lightning damage.
[You may choose one weapon item]
She scrolled through the extensive list, a few things caught her eye. An orb that would boost her spells slightly was the obvious choice. The slightly less obvious choice, a dagger or bow, something that would help her physically. The dagger won out. It was familiar. She clicked to the next screen.
[You may choose one non-weapon item]
This list was even more extensive, she’d only be playing for 24 hours, it didn’t matter what she picked. She scrolled and randomly selected something, a mess kit. Vaguely useful, she pressed next, eager to get through the character creation and into the game.
[Please choose a fellowship]
The game presented Taysia with seven options, each with its own symbol. Stone Soldiers, Zephyrnix, Fiferno, Forge Walkers, Rolling Wave, Willow Branch, Radiant Remembers. She immediately felt drawn to Zephyrnix with a symbol almost the color of her own skin.
Reading the description, she didn’t think the fellowship seemed quite right for her.
[We must be clever to prevail. Use all the tools at our feet. You’ll never see us for we are like the air. All around you but nowhere. The Moment you have forgotten us is the moment we will strike.]
Moreover, she didn’t see Illusio
nist listed in the common classes for Zephyrnix, nor did she pixie on the list. She pressed back.
>No!!!
>Aaw, but Zephyrnix, is the best, it’s my FS.
>You should try out Rolling Wave. They’re the best.
Taysia shrugged. Why not? She could take a look at Rolling Wave.
[Like water we shift and change. Calm one moment, violent the next. Like liquid we can fill any skin. You will find us everywhere you care to look, doing anything you care to imagine.]
It certainly sounded flexible enough. Besides, she’d only be playing for 24 hours. Plus, it had Illusionist on the list of common classes. She didn’t see pixie listed but one out of two. That was good enough for a game she wouldn’t be playing long.
She clicked next.
[Do you want to accept your selection?]
[Yes]
The screen went black for a moment, or rather, her view went black.
Suddenly she stood in a field, squinting at the sun. Under her feet the grass crunched with every step, a vivid spring green. A cloudless blue sky crafted so perfectly she thought it couldn’t possibly be real. It looked too perfect. Like something from an old movie.
“Ah, you must be the new recruit?”
Unlike her regular game, this one had lush green grass and blue cloudless sky. The sun warmed her dark skin attracting all the heat to it.
“Um sorry?” She turned to see a man standing behind her, he was older than her, human. His light armor barely more than a shirt and trousers.
“Our new recruit. We were told to expect you this afternoon.”
“Um, yes, I suppose that’s me. Taysia.” She held out her hand to shake the man’s knobby hand.
“Well, we should get you to work then. I take it you know how to access the character screen to distribute your points?”
Taysia shook her head. “Not yet, do I just say it or something?”
The man laughed, a deep belly laugh, doubling over, before coughing hard, a little glob of phlegm landing in the grass at his feet. Taysia grimaced, this game was far too realistic.
“No, you just think it. Try it now.”
Taysia felt silly, but she visualized a character screen like she was accustomed to seeing in games but something much different popped up instead. It blocked out the man in front of her. Enough that his presence wasn’t distracting. She squinted to the screen.