Ring of Promise: A LitRPG novel (Elements of Wrath Online Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

  Ring of Promise

  J. A. Cipriano

  J. B. Garner

  Contents

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  Also by J. A. Cipriano

  Quotes 1

  Chapter 1

  Quotes 2

  Chapter 2

  Quotes 3

  Chapter 3

  Quotes 4

  Chapter 4

  Quotes 5

  Chapter 5

  Quotes 6

  Chapter 6

  Quotes 7

  Chapter 7

  Quotes 8

  Chapter 8

  Quotes 9

  Chapter 9

  Quotes 10

  Chapter 10

  Quotes 11

  Chapter 11

  Quotes 12

  Chapter 12

  Quotes 13

  Chapter 13

  Quotes 14

  Chapter 14

  Quotes 15

  Chapter 15

  Quotes 16

  Chapter 16

  Quotes 17

  Chapter 17

  Quotes 18

  Chapter 18

  Quotes 19

  Chapter 19

  Quotes 20

  Chapter 20

  Quotes 21

  Chapter 21

  Thank You for reading!

  Glossary

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  Soulstone: Awakening

  Copyright © 2017 by J. A. Cipriano & J.B. Garner

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Also by J. A. Cipriano

  The World of Ruul

  Soulstone: Awakening

  Soulstone: The Skeleton King

  The Thrice Cursed Mage

  Cursed

  Marked

  Burned

  Seized

  Claimed

  Hellbound

  The Half-Demon Warlock

  Pound of Flesh

  Flesh and Blood

  Blood and Treasure

  Clans of Shadow

  Heart of Gold

  Feet of Clay

  Fists of Iron

  The Spellslinger Chronicles

  Throne to the Wolves

  Prince of Blood and Thunder

  The Lillim Callina Chronicles

  Wardbreaker

  Kill it with Magic

  The Hatter is Mad

  Fairy Tale

  Pursuit

  Hardboiled

  Mind Games

  Fatal Ties

  Found Magic

  May Contain Magic

  The Magic Within

  Magic for Hire

  Welcome to Elementalis Online! Help heal the shattered world of the Four Kingdoms, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, from the Elements of Wrath that try to tear it apart! Experience it all through the amazing new Neural Sensing And Functioning technology and literally live the adventure! Now available at major tech stores everywhere!

  Press release for Elementalis Online, March 3, 2218

  Are you telling me that the neural net I designed to let blind men see, to let crippled men walk, to let the voiceless have words, was bought out to make video games?!

  Dr. Rosemary Fontaine’s response, March 4, 2218

  1

  The glittering crystal spikes of the trees always caught my eye whenever I walked through the Earthfire Forest. Sitting at the edge of the Earth Kingdom, the shard of this broken world suffused with the power of the Element of Earth, the forest was a beautiful and dangerous conflagration of Elemental forces. It was along the edge of the land bounded by the Wrath, a seething and chaotic sea of raw energy that threatened to tear our world apart. From here, I could literally see the Flames of Wrath scorching and burning.

  The threat of geysers of hot, sticky magma added a frightening immediacy to that looming threat. Not wanting to be outdone, the constantly angry beasts that called this place home, corrupted beasts born of the mixture of earth and flame, were the sweetest icing on the cake of death that was Earthfire. You know, if icing came in the form of explosions of flame and the claws and teeth of the Ash Wolves. It was a region so dangerous that the Mountain King’s border guards didn’t set foot inside its borders for fear of a swift death and reincarnation at the nearest Life Crystal.

  Still, I had my pride and joy, a Grade S Tower of Solitude shield, to deal with that. It could take any damage the scorch wolves could dish out.

  That said, I normally wouldn’t be here, even though my Grade A Slate Sabatons helped me to ignore the razor-sharp shards of glass that imitated grass and the exploding seed-bundles that could drop from the trees. My quests here were done, and there wasn’t a single thing to be earned from hunting the beasts that lurked here.

  No, I was here for a job. I was a shield-for-hire, you could say, and a certain rich-but-novice adventurer had contacted me. He needed help with something here and wasn’t afraid to throw around the gold to make sure it got done. Ironically, it turned out to be something I hadn’t done here involving a certain rare and special beast that was said to haunt these woods. If I was lucky, I would be getting a double payday once I turned in the bounty quest … assuming the rich kid was right about the beast’s location.

  Narrowing my eyes, I took one last scan of the forest’s treacherous trees and scorched glades before doing a triple check of myself and my gear. As always happened, an involuntary sigh escaped my lips as my immersion in Elementalis was shattered by the main status UI (User Interface) flaring to life in front of me.

  Despite those obvious stabs of reality, I often wished this was the world I lived in. I know this wasn’t real since they coded little inconsistencies into these games to stave off immersion sickness and addiction but the unreality of it is awesome in and of itself.

  I guess the life-like quality of that unreal, new world is what makes Elementalis Online one of the biggest NSAF (Neural Sensory And Function) MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) on the planet. You don’t get yourself millions of plugged-in players if you couldn’t knock their socks off, after all. Who wouldn’t be impressed by a vibrant world composed of shattered landmasses, each formed of a different element and held together by glowing oceans, every sensation beamed into your brain straight away?

  EO wasn’t the first of its kind, and it wouldn’t be the last, but a lot of people think it was the best. It was for me, at any rate, for two reasons. First, it gave me a chance to hit paydays that take care of a lot of problems offline, and second, it was the first game that let me feel my feet on the ground. Sure, I couldn’t feel the grey-skinned rocky toes of my chosen avatar, but I could feel the ground beneath them through the thick, metal boots I was wearing, and let me just say, it was fantastic.

  I blinked those errant thoughts out of the way and concentrated. It would be a big knock to my reputation if I was found day-dreaming when the rest of the group got there. The faintly transparent screen glowed a pale white, standing out from my brown-and-ash surroundings. I focused on the main stuff: gear, Gems, that sort of thing. The header kept my attention the most, in particular, the pulsing blue
experience bar underneath:

  Shale, 39 Craggar Warlord

  598,000/600,000 Experience

  With the bounty quest from this particular rare MOB over, I’d finally hit 40. I had been lingering in the thirties for long enough. While I had made plenty of money from power-leveling twinks for a few months now, I’d wasted more than enough time on it. No, if this all worked out, I could get back to experiencing the game, and chase after bigger bounties

  The rest of the UI popped into life behind the status pane. My groupmates must be close now. For immersion's sake, the status indicators only popped up when your group was either zoning, you were in combat, or you purposefully brought them up. Red and green transparent arcs (Health Points (HP) and Elemental Power (EP) respectfully) came up around my center of vision, not too close to get in the way but close enough to be easily seen. Sure, you could try to rely on the simulated sensations of discomfort to gauge your HP before death and exhaustion to realize you were low on EP for using abilities, but anyone out of the newbie yards knew better. Sometimes a victory hinged on those last few HP and EP.

  Shale HP 3210/3210 EP 2420/2420

  Readying myself, I triple checked my gear, going from head to toe. The NSAF gear naturally utilized your basic frame to work your avatar around so Shale matched my own moderate height (if I could stand fully upright) and stocky frame. His skin was grey, though, flesh literally made of rock, with jagged angles instead of the smooth curves of flesh. My armor was a mismatched set of the best heavy plate armor I could put together, each piece picked for effectiveness with no thought to appearance. My boots were made of enchanted slate, my leggings were created from the shells of Gold Bugs (literally giant beetles infused with pure gold), and the rest was well-worn steel. Everything seemed in place.

  Clustered around my own arcs were smaller ones, each with a small icon denoting the Class and Role of the other members of our group. There were no names on the UI, though. There was no need for that as the NSAF link popped them right into my mind as I glanced at the display, as well as their guild names, if they had them.

  There were only three of us altogether and that pinged a warning in my brain. Even over leveled and geared as I was for this little romp, every scrap of information I knew about our target called for at least a full five-person group.

  Oh well, it wasn’t my show. I was being paid well one way or the other.

  Rich Kid’s status was on the left and his avatar’s name was Burndall. He must have thought the pun would be clever when playing an Ember Sorcerer but the name sounded stupid out-loud. Only level 20 (barely the level to take up the quest to slay our target) and guildless. I wondered if he was somebody’s second character being grinded up through the ranks quickly or an actual wealthy real lifer who was paying his way up. Either way, he was definitely geared out since his HP and EP readouts were way above normal, which was good since he’d be providing most of the DPS on this little adventure.

  Burndall HP 1020/1020 EP 2800/2800

  Our mystery third was what really caught my eye, er, brain. Kayla was a Nix Sorceress, yet she was listed as our Support. Supports were one of the lynchpin of a successful group, handling healing, bolstering abilities, and crowd control in battle. Sorcerers with their horrible C Grade Support Affinity usually made for bad Supports but then again, Nix were A Grade at Support so there was still hope.

  Still, my inner team player glowered at a normally DPS Class faking the roll. The only upside was that she was level 39 herself and, even better, a member of the Sisters of Artemis. This could wind up being easier than I first thought.

  Kayla HP 2010/2010 EP 3100/3100

  No more time for daydreaming as I could feel the incoming Teleport Spell before it hit. The blasted earth of the forest floor split open and a geyser of water spurted up, dancing and spiraling unnaturally into a rough oval. Fancy, someone cared enough about thematics to add a Water Modification to her Teleport Gem. It was a purely cosmetic touch, affecting the power of the spell not one bit, but I appreciated the bit of class it added to such a utilitarian ability.

  The fresh, clean water sizzled into steam as it dripped over the ground, another beautiful immersive touch, as the empty air in the watery portal burst into light. As the flash cleared, Burndall and Kayla stepped out of the flowing waters. The geyser subsided behind them and I could see that their appearances were as different from each other as they were from me.

  The kid (there was no way to know his age for sure, not with the Filter in place, but the idea had stuck in my brain since he was lower level) was really playing up the ‘badass edgelord’ look. Tall for an Ember and thin, almost to the point of being gangly, his dark red skin and blazing eyes were barely visible under the leather cloak and dark-red-almost-black robes. Though they were dyed, I recognized the cut and the sigils, some high-cost stuff there, but who knew what Gems he’d slotted in them? That’d be the real test, especially as he was sporting a Basalt Blade, nice but traditionally a weapon for Vanguards or Shadows, maybe even a Bladesaint, but not a backline caster.

  Still, I didn’t have a right to complain as I was playing one of the most maligned Classes in the game. Maybe he had an ingenious combination of Gems that worked for him, just like I had found a way that really worked for me.

  Sorry, I’ve gotten ahead of myself. The Gem System was the lifeblood of Elementalis, allowing anyone to pick up any Skill, Spell, or Passive ability with the right Gems and even modify those abilities. It was the real metagame, mixing Class and Racial Affinities with gear and Gems to come out with winning combinations, which was why I couldn’t judge the guy based on his gear alone.

  On that note, I took a second to slot a bit more Fire resistance. Craggar like me were a little weak against Fire normally and rare world bosses like this tended to be immune to Stuns. With a mental command, I swapped out my Shield Slam Skill Gem (S-Gems for short) for an Elemental Bastion and the linked Earth Opal Modification Gem (Mod) for a Fire Ruby.

  S-Gem removed! Skill 'Shield Slam' disabled.

  S-Gem slotted! Mod slotted! Skill 'Elemental Bastion' enabled with Fire Affinity modification.

  Still, the kid's low level made me glad for Kayla's presence. Unlike Burndall, she gave off the air of the cool, collected professional. She was also breathtakingly beautiful and that wasn’t as easy as you would think. Yeah, they try to make both the male and female avatars look as good as they can but as I mentioned earlier, the nature of deep dives on NSAF gear meant that avatars couldn’t stray too far from the actual person playing. Basically, if you were the victim of a horrible accident and thus didn’t look so good, your avatar could only look so much better (a fact that I was all too aware of). On the other hand, a real knockout was, well, a REAL knockout.

  Pearlescent, pale skin complimented swirling blue hair that moved as if she was underwater. Short and slight, Kayla’s gear was top-notch Player vs. Player gear, earned in the Crucible of Elements, the center of the Team Arena bracket. Elegant blue robes slid into light armor, silver greaves, shoulder guards, and gauntlets, and because Crucible gear couldn’t be dyed, the colors helped identify the grade and thus skill level of opponents, and that blue-and-silver scheme meant Grade S. The best of the best, at least in her level bracket. That explained why she was in the Sisters of Artemis without being at level cap. She must have kept herself purposefully at her level to stay in the 29 to 39 bracket, maybe to stay with her team until they caught up with her or something like that.

  Burndall looked around eagerly, betraying the dark and mysterious look of his avatar.

  “Sweet! First time in this zone but looks like I’ve already been here!” He laughed at his not-so-subtle joke, an obvious play on his punish name, before catching sight of me. I was ninety percent certain he was, in fact, a teenager; EO did alter your voice for privacy reasons, but they couldn’t do anything to alter your manner of speaking. “Duckling,” the omnipresent Filter politely inserted instead of the curse he had intended to spit out, “I didn’t know
you were a Warlord, dude. This is going to suck.”

  Ah, the Filter, a necessary evil to be sure. It pervaded the entire NSAF network, a constantly corrective AI that intercepted words that could be both offensive (such as swears or racial slurs) or could jeopardize the privacy of the user base. Identity theft led to brain-jacking, after all, the direct invasion of your brain through the neural interface … which meant no one in the game could talk about their real selves or their real lives. It did add to the immersion, though, and it kept us safe. Those were big pluses for all the inconvenience.

  I didn’t bristle. I was used to that kind of reaction, and like those before him, he’d soon be eating those words. As I gripped my Standard of Granholm, the long staff bearing the coat of arms of the Craggar capitol, holding it up straight so the blood-red banner could flap freely, I responded. “You needed a tank; there’s no one tankier in my level bracket. You have to know my reputation if you’re paying for this, right?”

  “With how few people you hired, Burndall, you should be glad you have a Warlord,” Kayla pointed out, producing an Orb of Soothing Waters in one hand. I didn’t see her hands or arms move. Another good-if-expected sign, she was using direct neural commands instead of gestures. “Don’t believe all the meta-guides you read. Even we use Warlords for new content or nasty fights.”