Masters of Strata (Deepest Dungeon #2) - A LitRPG series

by G. D. Penman

  An inbuilt alibi. Within the game, the Masters seemed to have been blind to the Klimpt NPC and his machinations, so there was nothing incriminating there. They were probably still monitoring him, tracking his searches and so on, but as long as he didn’t do anything obviously suspicious he suspected he’d get away with it.

  He tabbed past the half-dozen messages that had arrived in the conversation with Lindsay to tap in an internet search for “fraudulent calls” to see if he might reinforce his narrative, assuming they were tracking him.

  Going back to Lindsay, he was horrified at the rapid degeneration of the chat.

  “What if that thing repeated back all the nasty stuff I said about Jericho?!”

  “What if that thing repeated back all the nasty stuff I said about Julia?!”

  “What if that thing repeated back all the stuff I said about Julia and Jericho doing the nasty?!”

  “What if that thing repeated back all the nasty stuff I say about you?!”

  “Nah wait. The boss fights don’t last that long. It wouldn’t have time to repeat all the times I dunk on you in a day. #Burn”

  “But for real, that thing is designed to cause drama! Phalanx, Dramasaurus Rex.”

  Martin was all caught up, so he jumped back in. “I suspect that the effect is meant to be eerie and unsettling rather than drama inducing. Most guilds probably don’t talk about each other behind one another’s backs the way that ours does.”

  “Oh, you sweet summer child. I’ve been in guilds that turned out to be twelve-person polycules that just didn’t know who all the rest were banging. I’ve been in guilds who had their chat logs subpoenaed because of the drug deals being organized by the officers. You think that Iron Riot’s got drama? This is all smooth sailing compared to that one time I made out with my guild-master’s wife/manager at a Mexican buffet.” There was a momentary pause before she added, “#MuyCaliente.”

  This was exactly what Martin needed to loosen the knot in his chest. He let out a soft guffaw. “Nobody can say you’ve lived a boring life.”

  “They can try, but then I make out with their wife/manager at a Mexican buffet. Bam. Right in the kisser.”

  There was a momentary pause, then Lindsay rapid-fire typed: “Okay but seriously have you got a plan? Or was that just for the monkeys?”

  “I have most of a plan. Didn’t level up. Optional ability that lets me tank all curses cast on the guild.”

  “So we’ll just have to murder your dumb ass again? Sounds good!”

  Usually, Lindsay’s input to a plan came during its execution, when her ability to make split-second decisions firmly outweighed the more methodical planning of Martin, but this time it was in an area where she held more expertise, so Martin was forced to ask, “Think J + J can hold it together?”

  There was no response for so long that Martin picked up his phone and dawdled over to the sink, but just as he was readying himself to clean a bowl for ramen, Lindsay finally replied.

  “For sure. Just need to bang it out.”

  “Disgusting. Thank you.”

  “#Caliente!”

  He tossed the phone back onto the bed with disgust. If all that it took to resolve the emotional problems of Jericho was a little physical affection then he would allot a portion of his earnings from Strata auctions to employing a full-time live-in concubine for the man.

  Dinner was brief and tasteless. Everything was usually tasteless, or drowned in sweeteners and salt. Just like everything else in his life out here. There was nothing here that he loved. Nothing that he even liked. If he wasn’t dead, he’d be in Strata right now.

  It was easy to see how the impressionable might fall under the spell of Strata. To believe that it was not only real, but more real than this place.

  Strata was a world that made sense, even if its logic was cold and brutal. The strong and the clever prospered, the venal and the worthless found their progress halted by challenges that they could never surpass. Meritocracy in action. Pure and true.

  Nothing in his real life had reflected this supposed truth. Working hard did not mean progress, it meant more work being shunted onto him by the feckless who had the right social connections to be advanced. Movies and books had told him his life goals should be accomplished by now. He should have a home, a partner, a family, a career. All the building blocks of success and happiness that he didn’t even know how to start acquiring. How could anyone buy a house when they cost so much? How could anyone meet another human being who they could tolerate spending every day for the rest of their life with? Even the mechanics of producing children made Martin queasy, so he skirted carefully around that thought.

  As for careers, the math simply did not add up. Even as he excelled, the reward was only just barely enough to scrape by. He was widely considered to be a leader in his field, yet he lived in this shoebox apartment surrounded by addicts, migrants, and everyone else that society was doing its best to shove out of sight.

  Even the little details made more sense in Strata. Why would humans live like this, crammed into these little boxes when they were descended from apes of the jungles and plains? Why would they be devoid of hair all over their body when they lived in the same climates as the mammals that still boasted a full coat of hair.

  When he looked down at the well-muscled human body that the NIH had granted him it seemed completely alien. Like he had closed his eyes and opened them again in a new body. Someone else’s body. He hated it. He loved what this new body could do, but it wasn’t his. He felt more at home with one eye than two. He had a rush of vertigo every time he stood up. A sense of his balance being thrown off when he walked around, like his center of gravity had been positioned too high.

  He didn’t live here anymore. Like a hermit crab, the parts of him that were truly him had expanded beyond the limits of this shell.

  The brakes of that train of thought slammed on. Delusions of grandeur. Denial of reality. This wasn’t a revelation, it was a psychotic break.

  He placed the noodle bowl back in the sink very carefully then stalked across to sit on the bed. There was something wrong with the NIH. That was the only explanation he could come up with. That was why everyone who played the game became obsessed. That was what had happened to Klimpt. The Masters. Jessie Beldrum. All of them suffered from these delusions. Confusing the game and reality. Inventing mythologies to explain it all away.

  Even the voices and the dreams made sense in that context. He was going insane.

  The only trouble was, he didn’t feel very insane. If he was insane, surely he wouldn’t have enough awareness to question all this. How could he be delusional if he was logically assessing how much of his experience was a delusion?

  He needed perspective. He needed outside perspective. He needed to speak to others about their experiences with the game. Test his theories against more data. What a pity that the only way to do that was going back into the game, just as he’d been planning all along.

  Now that the seed of doubt about his own sanity had been planted, Martin spent hours backtracking through everything he had seen and done, working out just how much of his world could be corroborated by an external source.

  He had his computer’s logs, clearly delineating when he was in this world and when he was in Strata. He had his phone, but if the Masters were not a product of his fevered hallucinations then they could have been altering the information available to him there. The very deliberate purges he’d made of his personal data in preparation for his fieldtrip made that even harder to qualify. There was no physical evidence of his journey to visit Klimpt because he’d gone out of his way to ensure that any attempt at forensic pursuit was thwarted.

  In fact, beyond his interactions online – which he could not trust the Masters had not altered – and his time in the game, Martin’s only other contact was with the big vending machine at the subway station where he acquired his sustenance. There were stores, and they were closer, but he appreciated not having to talk to anyone
.

  He spent his life completely unobserved. In others, this might have sparked some kind of existential crisis, wondering if they even existed without other people knowing them, but for Martin it was the platonic ideal. He had always been distant from this world, uncomfortable and confused every time he stepped outside his door. It was no wonder he was so susceptible to the draw of Strata. A world where he mattered, where his actions made a difference — how could he not want that?

  The only option was to talk things over with the rest of the guild. Voice his concerns. Allow himself to be known, much as it irked him to show vulnerability. Jericho would be contemptuous of his mental weakness. Julia would insist that he quit the game at once for the good of his health. They were entirely predictable.

  The only outlier who might help him work things through was Lindsay. She remained an unpredictable element. Would she try to have him muscle through his confusion so that the guild could go on making progress? Would her obvious affection for him prompt her to suggest that he take a break from the game, even at the cost of her entertainment? More pressingly, would she believe Klimpt’s tale of alternate dimensions, Jungian collective thoughts and the Masters’ cult, or would she come to the same conclusion that he was rapidly approaching – that there was something in the device itself that was inducing madness.

  He could call her right now. She’d walked out of boardroom meetings to take a call for him before. She’d once answered the phone to him while she was in the shower. With someone else. There was no possibility of rejection, yet he still couldn’t bring himself to do it. He justified it to himself easily. If he told her now, she would be distracted going into the fight the next day. If he spoke to the guild about it, their head would not be in the game.

  The truth was, if he admitted that there was a problem, then Strata would go away. His one escape from this misery of a life would be gone. Unless he could sell them on Klimpt’s deranged battle of cosmic forces, it was all over the moment he started talking.

  His phone started ringing again. Another unknown number. Every point of contact put him at more risk, but if it was anything like the last call, there was a chance his pursuers might give away more than they acquired.

  Without really thinking it through, he let his thumb drift to the green button. “Hello?”

  “I know it was you, Skaife.” That was not the calm professional voice of the woman from before. But it was profoundly familiar. His very own Master stalker.

  “I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong number.” Martin kept his voice calm.

  “You murder the father of Strata and you think you can walk away from that? You think that there aren’t going to be consequences? The others might not believe it yet, but I know you. I’ve watched you. You have the desperation. You did it.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know what you are talking about.” There was a fury in the Master’s voice that Martin had not anticipated. Fear, he knew well. That wavering edge that appeared every time he spoke of the deeper truths of the game. But this rage was new. It made it difficult to keep his own tone neutral. “I think you have misdialed.”

  “The only mistake I made was underestimating how far you would go for your petty victory. You’re deranged.”

  Martin couldn’t hold back a sarcastic laugh. “Look who’s talking.”

  “You little… This is not a joke. This is not a game! You are going to kill us all. Do you understand that?”

  “No. Please explain in detail.” He flicked on his phone’s voice recorder with a beep.

  He could hear the Master’s mouth opening and shutting on the other end of the line. The struggle, the internal conflict. There was a clicking sound. Then the pristine and polished phone voice from earlier came back on the line. “Thank you for your time, sir.”

  “Always happy to help.”

  The call ended. The recorder clicked off on its own. He sat and stared at the phone in his hands.

  They were his hands. Just as surely as Skaife’s ratty little paws were his. He needed that reminder. He was still himself out here. Just as surely as he was in Strata. The body changed, but who he was did not. All the fear about losing himself was ridiculous. As was the idea that he was losing his grip on reality. He was willing to entertain the possibility that his senses were being confused, but he rejected the possibility that he was losing his grip. His logic was unassailable. Same as it always had been. Just because his circumstances were strange, that didn’t mean there was anything wrong with him.

  He could not quit. He would not quit. There was only one way that this could all end, and that was when Strata was completed.

  The Master was not believed by his co-workers or co-cultists. His theories about Martin were not accepted. If anything, his insistence that Martin was responsible for Klimpt’s death was just making it seem more and more like a personal crusade against a random player. The only logical move now would be for them to take a step back and wait for more evidence. To watch him as closely as they had up until now, hoping he slipped up. Martin would not make a mistake. He did not make mistakes.

  The pressure may have been getting to him, but he had a simple solution to that. With Phalanx defeated in the morning, he would talk to the guild.

  Eighteen

  The Masks of Madness

  The dreams were softer that night. The fear more distant. As though his renewed commitment meant that the Heart no longer had to pull at him so hard.

  You are coming to me, my beloved. You are coming, and we shall be as one. Your pain ends. Your new life begins.

  He was a rat in his dreams, seated on a high throne, as he had been out in the void, looking down over the inverted Strata as his domain. All the beasts of the vanguard of the crusade fallen in supplication before him. The Masters themselves bent and broken at his feet. He opened up his eye and green light poured forth. It was inside him. All the power of the Heart was his. Surging through him in a tide.

  When the little beasts of his dominion cried out to the gods below, they were calling to him.

  He woke with a start a moment before his alarm sounded. The black static that had been filling his mind felt like it was gone. All the fear and confusion too. Even the aches and pains of his body seemed to have departed. He might not have been the physical god that he’d become in his dreams, but he felt as close to it as he’d ever been in his life. The most perfect version of himself. Thoughts flaring through his head faster than lightning, spreading out through the careful circuits of reason and planning that he’d laid there. They were going to win. He could feel it.

  A quick trip to the bathroom, a slosh of water in his dry mouth and then to the bed and his precious NIH once more. He felt the weight of it in his hands. “You aren’t giving me brain damage, are you?”

  On reflection, talking to inanimate objects probably wasn’t the best way to convince himself that he wasn’t going mad.

  Lindsay was already awake and ready, apparently

  “Anyone else super hyped to kill an Archduke today? Just me?”

  “Anyone else awake yet? Come on dudes, what do I pay you for?”

  “I hope it plays back my big wobbly dong line today. Or gives away Martin’s secret crush on Speckles.”

  “Oh shit I totally forgot about Speckles! Is he still alive? Last I saw he got zapped with the laser eyes.”

  “He’s still alive for sure. He’s totally doing the whole possum thing, right?”

  “Who gave the frog-blob a bow and arrows by the way? He nearly hit me in the ass yesterday.”

  “Yo snack-size, wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

  “Let’s gooooooooooooooooo.”

  Jericho had responded with a screenshot of their agreed start time, ending the tirade.

  Martin tapped back. “I am ready. Do not log in before we’re all there to protect Jericho from the settlement. Log in together, in 5.”

  Julia sent a little heart emoji. The chat showed Jericho typing then stopping repeatedly, before fi
nally deleting whatever it had been and he responded with: “Ready.”

  The usual sense of lurching when Martin logged in was absent today. One moment he was lying in his bed, the next he was standing in Deephaven, surrounded by the columns of light as his friends appeared around him.

  He turned to smile at them as they arrived. All of the petty irritations of the past few days faded. He could even forgive Jericho’s angsty nonsense in the mood he was in right now. Everything was going to go their way.

  That was when the screaming started.

  All around them, the townsfolk of Deephaven poured out of their homes, hoisting weapons and tools. Charging at Iron Riot like they were monsters. Martin blinked his eye shut for the millisecond he needed for his worst fears to be confirmed. Killing Lindsay, even under the effect of the curse, had been enough to tick his Sin score too high. He was a Shadow Templar now. A moment’s concentration showed the others’ dark classes over their heads. Heretic, Assassin, Malevolent.

  He yelped, “Run,” but the opportunity was gone before they could seize it. Every path and alley out of the circle in the middle of the town where crusaders respawned was crammed with the NPCs of the town. Every one of them full up to bursting with righteous fury. Too many to fight. Way too many to fight. He spun on the spot and pointed. “Jericho, break through. Lindsay, watch his flank. Julia, blast anything that tries to follow us.”

  Jericho clapped his meaty paws together with unbridled delight. “Yes, boss!”

  They all followed in the wake of his charge. The fewer villagers they had to kill, the lower their Sin would stay and the easier this whole thing would be. The candles all around them on the tops of the houses guttered and died as he blackened his blade with Void Strike, hoping against hope that it might be enough to scare the townsfolk off.