by J. R. Ford
Storm’s Breath
Book one of NULLIFIER
J.R. Ford
Copyright © 2020 Jacob R Ford
All rights reserved.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Afterword
About the Author
1
Waking up in a new reality was rough. The nausea was as bad as I’d been warned — don’t know why I’d expected different. I opened my eyes, caught a swirling vision of tavern, and rested my head in my hands. My thoughts lagged.
Okay. I was sitting at a table. Solid earth beneath my feet. I was wearing clothes, which was good, but there was the bulge of an unfamiliar hand in my pocket, which was less good.
I tried to rise, but vertigo put me on the ground with a thud. The impact jarred my vision from a whirlpool to a lazy river.
I was in the stereotypical fantasy bar/tavern/inn. Others groaned, struggling with the transition. Everything seemed so real, including the guy looming over me, a snarl on his lips.
“Whoa, whoa,” I said, before he drove a foot into my ribs. Cold pain shocked me into wakefulness.
Me scrabbling at his legs toppled him. I leapt up, only to collapse across his stomach. Coins clinked as they fell from my pocket.
He squirmed under my weight. He didn’t look like a weakling, so he must’ve been feeling the transition as bad as I was.
I smashed my fist on his nose. It crunched, blood spurted, and he squealed. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
I pushed off his face and staggered to my feet, a mistake. A kick to my ankles sent me falling. I took my opportunity to grab a fistful of my coins. He took his to punch me in the cheek.
The blow stunned me while he got up and stumbled backward, right into some brave soul trying to take her first steps. She shrieked as they tumbled to a heap on the floor.
I looked around. There were perhaps thirty of us in total, each in a different state of incapacitation, all either beating on someone or getting beat on. A veritable barfight out of an old Western, only no one seemed to know what they were doing any more than I did.
My nemesis lumbered toward me. I dodged away from a tackle; he got a face full of table, and someone got a face full of me. They shoved me back into the fray, where one of my flailing fists slammed into the pickpocket’s head. My hand throbbed, but he dropped. Worth it. At the top of my vision, glowing blue text appeared: “Win your first fight: +1.”
Chaos gripped the tavern. People tottered around like toddlers, and those who lay still were prime pickings for drunken vultures. Even the woman my pickpocket had crashed into was being preyed upon.
Not my problem, I convinced myself, searching for an exit instead. The community center karate of my youth had long since abandoned me, and I had no desire for an unlucky punch to end my run early.
I spotted the door, past about ten guys. I made for the wall instead, dodging out of the way as someone was thrown into my path. I helped her to her feet, only for her to charge back into the frenzy. Some people.
My knees buckled when I reached the wall, and nausea returned in waves. I fought it down and staggered toward the door. The brawl only seemed to be getting worse as I exited.
Sunlight seared my vision, and the scent of fresh pine filled my nostrils. A village stood in a meadow, fenced by towering trees with shining needles. A river babbled somewhere. I closed my eyes and basked in the warmth, then retched.
A shadow darkened the ground beside me. Great, another pickpocket. I lurched away and raised hands like a boxer. They didn’t know I couldn’t fight. Unfortunately, if push came to shove, what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
“You good?” he asked. He was my age, with a dark tangle of hair not unlike mine, though his skin was the color of mahogany. His hands were in his pockets.
“Yeah. I’m Pavel.” I wiped sour bile from my mouth with my sleeve and extended my hand.
He didn’t take it, not that I blamed him. “Farrukh. Thought you’d get out of there too?”
I’d expected speaking to feel weird — I’d expected everything to feel weird, only nothing did, which was weird in itself. My words jumbled out, “I’ve heard of people, one punch and they hit the ground the wrong way and they’re dead. Don’t want that to be me.”
“Not when we just started. You get in through the lotto?”
I chuckled. “I look poor, huh?” We both wore the drab-gray starting gear.
“Oh. No offense meant.”
Hoping he didn’t have a problem with the truth, I said, “Yeah, lotto. You?”
“Same. What’s your strategy?”
“Uh…? I haven’t put much thought into it. Just going to try to stay alive. Take it as it comes.”
He laughed. “It’s time to start taking.”
“Guess I’ll head to a city. Party up, find some quest or another.” As if making friends were that easy — but that was a river to drown in when I came to it.
“Don’t like the look of the ones here?” he asked, gesturing at a notice board next to the tavern. The posters had the same glowing blue text as the notification. Most were the usual low-level RPG quests: oust a den of wolves from a mine to the south; hunt a gator infesting the river; destroy a nest of trollbats, whatever those were. Not activities I wanted to undertake alone.
“What about you?”
He looked out at the forest. “Think I’ll get out of the newbie area, find some high-level quests, rack up points and loot. All those lost family swords.”
“You aren’t afraid of getting killed?”
“Only the highest scorers win anything worth winning. We’re lucky to be the first group here, and I’m not going to squander that. I’ll get ahead early and snowball from there. The whole thing is won or lost in these first few days.”
I didn’t believe that but didn’t want an argument. The part about only the best of the best earning anything was true enough. “You want points that badly, you’d risk dying three hours in?”
“No way I amount to anything without them.”
I remembered the point I’d gotten for knocking that guy senseless, and dread slithered into my gut. A few others had left the tavern, mostly staggering toward the other buildings or lying in the grass. No one that mattered. I inched back.
“Calm down, dude,” Farrukh said. “It look like I want to hurt you? Just because I want to win doesn’t mean I’m a jerk.”
Fair. “Yeah, sorry.”
He walked off. Four steps later, he turned back. “You coming with? I have shopping to do.”
Signs displayed icons for a tailor, grocer, and general goods store. We made for the latter first. The shop, like the forest and the rest of the village, was made of pine. The sticky-sweet scent was much more authentic than the air fresheners Mom insisted on hanging in the car.
The shopkeeper was a stout man whose hair had migrated from his scalp to his upper lip. A sword hung from his belt — thief deterrent? He smiled as we entered. “Anything you can see, you can
buy.” A couple of other patrons had escaped the brawl as well and were browsing.
Weapons gleamed in the window’s light. Farrukh strung a polished black bow and tested its weight. Satisfied, he unstrung it and put it on the counter, along with a buckskin case, a leather quiver, and a handful of arrows.
I checked some price labels, then my pocket. Four gold coins.
“Yo Farrukh, how much gold you got?”
“Ten.”
Ugh. I must’ve lost some in the fight.
“You sell rugs?” he asked the shopkeeper.
“I got tarp.”
Farrukh bought an entire camping setup, including said tarp, rope, tinderbox, bedroll, leather canteen, and first aid kit, with a poleax on top.
The weapon looked wicked. Spearpoints tipped either end, with an ax blade and sharp hook on the head.
“Won’t that get caught on branches?” I asked.
“I don’t know how nasty the things out there will be. The further away I can keep them, the better.”
A sword would do me fine. Not like I had the money for a poleax or bow, anyway. I did grab a canteen of my own, though.
Farrukh noticed my envious stare and shrugged. I shrugged. The shopkeeper shrugged.
“You’re a real person, aren’t you?” I asked him.
The shopkeeper nodded. “As I live and breathe.” His mustache bristled with each word.
“You come just to run a shop?”
“Just for you lot. Whenever anyone enters a shop, an employee will log in.”
“Can you direct me to the nearest city?”
He spread a map out on the counter. A ridge of mountains fenced the west and north borders, and a forest hugged the rivers that streamed down from them. He pointed to a dot in the forest, Murray’s Ford.
“Follow the river a day and you’ll reach Bluehearth. It’ll be a hotspot for adventurers.”
“Why?” I asked.
“You’ll see.”
“Let me guess,” Farrukh said. “Monsters. And where there are monsters, there are quests, loot, and points, ripe for the taking.”
“Astute. You some sort of professional gamer?”
Farrukh ignored the sarcasm. “By the time this is over.”
“During the Beta, we had game testers to keep the beasts off our backs. The warlock Vedanth Lokesh in the western mountains, and his brother Pradeep in his fortress on the northern plains.”
On the left edge of the map, a river pass broke the mountainous border. A castle, Vedanth Durg, perched on the cliffs above it. I traced the river down to Bluehearth, then turned north. A solitary fortress stood on the plain, Riyaasat.
Farrukh studied it as well. Absently, he said, “Sounds like there are shoes waiting to be filled.”
The shopkeeper laughed. “You’d be lucky. Both of them were level 5, the max, with powerful magics at their beck and call.”
Farrukh’s eyes shot up. “How?”
“Artifacts. Consume one to level up and gain new spells.”
“Where can I find one?”
He laughed again, a deep sound from his belly. “No spoilers. Best of luck to the two of you. I’ll be watching.”
“Farrukh Wakim. Remember it.”
The shopkeeper nodded, solemn.
“That map for sale?” Farrukh asked.
“Five gold.”
“Peace.”
I waved good-bye as we exited.
I grabbed a cloak at the tailor, a grayish-green thing of a tough weave. Farrukh bought a tunic of the same color and a black hooded mantle. Some rations from the grocer and we were fully outfitted.
“So,” I said, “I’ll be heading toward Bluehearth then.” A dirt path ran to the edge of the river, beginning again on the far bank before turning to follow it downstream.
“I’ll head west.”
“Toward the mountains?”
“Who else will be going that way? I’ll stick with you until I find a road.”
We forded the stream. I kept my eyes on the brush — there were monsters out there.
The forest enveloped us. Waist-high scrub huddled on the forest floor, encroaching on the path, shadowed by thick trees. Sometimes the road hugged the riverbank, but more often a precipice would claim that spot. Farrukh was as quiet and watchful as I, but the river warded against silence. Its whisper promised adventure. I wasn’t in Atlanta anymore.
The stillness frayed my nerves raw. Every tiny motion had my head jerking, afraid I’d see a trollbat descending upon me. Mostly just hares and birds. Maybe I should’ve stayed in the village. I’m sure at least some of the other players weren’t thieves.
Problem was, a good thief never looks like one. But I could trust Farrukh, if only because he could’ve robbed and killed me any number of times already.
So out here we were, about to get jumped by a monster on the first day. I’m sure my sister would have a good laugh watching that.
The sword hanging at my belt did little to reassure me. The wooden scabbard rasped as I drew the weapon — three feet of matte iron, tapering to a point. I gave it a few test swings.
Farrukh grabbed a pinecone and jogged ahead. “Bowling!” he cried, then hurled it at me overhand, like a softball. It hit the ground and bounced toward my legs. A swing and a miss.
“Out!” Farrukh said, though I still had two strikes left by my count. Maybe they played baseball differently where he was from. He had an accent, but I was terrible with those.
I eyed the forest beside him. “Relax,” he said. “The wolves were to the south, and the trollbats will be asleep. The gator might be around here, though.”
“And if there are monsters that weren’t on the board?”
“The wildlife would act like it.”
Ignoring him, I spun my sword in a cool fashion, then tried a couple more swings. Guess it would do.
I took the sword in my left hand and pressed the index and middle fingers of my right to my palm, one of the precious few tidbits we had gotten during the briefing, along with warnings of nausea and stern instructions to actually read the End-User License Agreement. A menu glowed blue before me: “Leaderboard,” “Quests,” “Spells,” “Notification Log,” “Disable Feed,” “Log Out.” But I was interested in the statistics.
In the top right of the user interface, I still had 1 point, and 3 viewers: Mom, Dad, and Luci. They wouldn’t be earning me a fortune in ad revenue, but it was good to know they cared.
“If you do win some money, what’ll you do with it?” I asked, releasing the UI.
“University,” he said. “Don’t want to waste my life on Standard Income. My parents just sit around all day, consuming the newest nothing.”
“There’s no shame in living contentedly,” I countered.
He didn’t hear the uncertainty in my voice. “I wouldn’t be content. Would you?”
“I don’t need riches to be happy, only a good PC and plenty of time to myself.”
“You do you,” he said. “I’ll do me.”
“What does that entail?” I asked. “Outside of school, I mean.”
“Every summer — except this one — I catch a bus out of town and camp out. Instead of consuming, I let nature consume me.”
“You’ve come to the right game, as long as you don’t mind the monsters.”
“Means I’ll have something better to do than fish all day. I never caught anything anyway.”
The path returned to the riverbank. I squinted at it. “Think that killer gator’s in there?”
Farrukh gripped his poleax, the butt spike poised to skewer. “What about you? What would you spend your fortune on?”
I thought a moment. “A few years of avoiding responsibility, I guess. And a beefier tower.”
A couple of hours into the hike, my steps were beginning to slow, as were my wits. I supposed I should’ve expected this, having hiked approximately three times in my life. Farrukh seemed fine though, so I soldiered on.
A tributary fed into the river, a
nd a side road did likewise. A good place for a well-deserved break. A felled trunk jutted out of a thick tangle of scrub, perfect for sitting, but I’m no fool. That’s where people get got. I plopped myself down in the middle of the path, and Farrukh sat beside me.
The roads in all three directions twisted away, limiting my vision. I kept an eye out anyway, while grabbing some food.
The biscuits absorbed all the moisture in my mouth. I took a long pull from my canteen. Sloshing it, it was about half-full. “You think the river water’s drinkable?”
“Probably.”
“Cover me,” I said, inching forward. Farrukh readied his spike. I spotted no gators, nor the tracks of any, not that I knew what gator tracks looked like.
My canteen bubbled as the water flowed in. No beast emerged to feast upon me. Success.
The flowing water reminded me. I tapped the UI, disabled my feed, and approached the fallen trunk.
Then I heard voices and jumped out of my skin. They came from up the tributary, past where the road twisted. I scrambled behind the trunk and crouched down. Deep instinct told me these guys were bad news.
“We should hide!” I whispered at Farrukh, who still stood in the road.
“Why?” he asked at normal volume.
“Trust me!” I pushed down through the brush as quietly as I could, which was not very. My sword tangled on a bush, and I almost fell right into an anthill. The voices came closer, and Farrukh slipped in beside me, annoyingly quiet. At least I had some line of sight to the road.
I tapped my palm to reenable my feed. I couldn’t earn points without it on, and more importantly, my family would never let me live it down if all the evidence pointed to me getting eaten while taking a leak.
Words became clear as their speakers approached the crossroads.
