Table of Contents
Chapter I: Redemption
Chapter II: Immersion
Chapter III: Learning Curve
Chapter IV: Venturing Forth
Chapter V: Ice and Mud
Chapter VI: Jhondey
Chapter VII: The Welcoming Committee
Chapter VIII: Settling In
Chapter IX: A Clean Slate
Chapter X: Cavern of the Gargoyle
Chapter XI: Going Under
Chapter XII: Spoils of Battle
Chapter XIII: Councils and Counterplots
Chapter XIV: Stage Two
Chapter XV: Into the Secret Land
Chapter XVI: Going Forward, Going Deep
Chapter XVII: Reaching Out
Chapter XVIII: The Game of Life
Chapter XIX: Childs’ Play
Chapter XX: The Acid Test
Chapter XXI: Up in the Clouds
Chapter XXII: Boss Fight
The Alchemy Worlds
Book I: Enter T(he)rap(y)
by Victor Justice for LitRPG Freaks
The Alchemy Worlds
Copyright © 2017 by LitRPG Freaks
Cover Art by Piotr Tekien
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.
Chapter I: Redemption
Chez let out a sharp squeal and clutched at his nose. Blood streamed through his fingers as he staggered away, filling the air with obscenities.
With a cold smirk, Matias wiped his mouth and spat on the asphalt floor of the recreation yard. “Where you going, Chez?” he called out. “I was just playing.”
“You bit through my nose, you goddam animal!” Chez snarled, still covering the lower part of his face. “Man, you gonna regret that for the rest of your sorry life!” He gestured to Sulky, the lumbering heap of muscle who served as Chez’s enforcer, and the big thug advanced on Matias.
Matias grinned and licked his lips, tasting Chez’s blood on his tongue. “Yeah baby, come and get me,” he said mockingly to Sulky. “I’m all ready for ya!”
His face an expressionless slate, Sulky lashed out with one ham hock fist, intent on shattering Matias’ jaw. The smaller man waited until the last second to dodge the blow. He moved with sleek grace and jabbed Sulky straight in the eyes with his fingers.
Sulky was taken off-guard, and Matias followed up with a sharp punch to the big lug’s throat. Sulky let out a choking groan and his heavy jowls wobbled.
“Okay, okay, break it up ladies!” Officer Keene’s booming voice rang out across the yard. He moved toward Matias with the unshakeable determination of a ballistic missile, five of his men sweeping down alongside him.
The rest of the prisoners scattered like startled crows, leaving only Matias, Chez, and Sulky to face Keene’s wrath.
“Officer Keene, thank goodness you got here in time. These bad men were invading my safe space,” Matias said.
“None of your lip, you piece of scum!” Keene snarled, raising his shock baton. “You’ll learn some respect even if it kills you.”
“Don’t be mean, Officer Keene. I’m a lover, not a fighter. Just ask your daughter.”
Keene’s piggy eyes flared with anger and he drove the head of his baton into Matias’ stomach. White pain erupted through Matias as the baton’s electrical charge hit him hard. He jerked away from the blow and was sent sprawling to the ground. Chez sniggered.
“Solitary for you, until you learn how to behave,” Keene said, looking down on Matias with contempt.
Matias glared up at him and, for a split second, he thought he saw his papa standing there instead of the prison officer. The bastard had been about the same size as Keene. And as Matias stared at the baton in the man’s hand, he remembered the leather belt papa used to beat him senseless with when he was a kid.
The memory triggered an eruption of fury and Matias launched himself at Keene.
The officer let out a yelp of surprise that became a yowl of pain as Matias drove his knee hard into the soft flab of his lower belly. Keene doubled over and dropped the baton. Matias immediately snatched it up and drove it into the other man’s side, pressing down on the button that activated the electric charge. Keene danced like a marionette and then went down like a felled oak tree. A wild grin split Matias’ face as he shocked him again and again, imagining it was papa writhing around on the ground.
Suddenly, hands were grabbing at him as the other guards rushed to stop the slaughter. Another electric shock to his upper body almost took him down. But Matias fought through the pain and lunged at the guards, brandishing the baton with one hand and using his other fist, feet and teeth to tear into them.
The outside world disappeared into a maelstrom of agony and ecstasy, and Matias roared in savage triumph. It was only at moments like these that he felt truly alive.
* * *
In the cavernous office of chrome and glass that sat at the top of Calladyce Tower, Amy Fallon watched the playback on the holo-monitor of this morning’s latest fight in disgust. It had taken five guards to finally restrain Matias and, then, he had to be sedated before they got him properly under control. The man was a complete psychopath, and every fibre in her being told her that immersing him into the interface of BeyondMind was going to be a disaster.
With a heavy sigh, she flicked her hand and the holo-monitor disappeared. “We can’t use him,” she said out loud. “He’s utterly insane.”
“That’s a rather harsh assessment, my dear,” replied Doctor Calladyce from behind his huge mahogany desk. “I think he has quite a lot of potential.”
Amy shook her head and her nimble fingers danced over the floating holo-console hovering a few inches above her desk. She brought up Matias Temno’s file and skimmed through it again. The only son of Arthur and Jess Temno, Matias had been committing petty crimes since the age of six. By age ten, he was dealing crack to the other kids and junkies on the housing project where he lived. A disagreement with a fellow gang member at age twelve, which ended with Matias ripping off the left ear of said rival, landed him in juvenile detention. From then on, Matias was in and out of trouble with the law, arrested frequently for assault and anti-social behaviour. Most of it was pretty low level stuff, despite the violence involved, until a botched armed robbery on a grocery store that resulted in the near-death of the store clerk. That landed Matias with a five year prison stretch. It was at this point in his criminal career that he attracted the attention of the Calladyce Foundation and transferred here to their special penitentiary on a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean.
Amy’s gaze drifted away from the bio and lingered on the image of Matias, floating next to it. He had sleek, boyish features with strong cheekbones and bright green eyes. His head was shaved and, when he smiled, he could almost be mistaken for cute. He reminded Amy of her little brother, which made her dislike him even more.
“This is not a good idea at all, doctor,” Amy said, dismissing the file. “He’s too unpredictable, unstable even. Today’s latest incident proves that.”
“By all accounts, Matias was simply defending himself,” Doctor Calladyce replied. His deep blue eyes twinkled with a mischievous light from behind the half-moon spectacles he wore. “The degenerate Chez wanted to use him as his new rape-buddy, and Keene is a sadistic pig. In a sense, both of them got what they deserved.”
“But we can’t let him loose amongst the peoples of the Alchemy Worlds!” Amy protested. “Think of the havoc he’ll cause!”
>
“There will be certain restrictions put in place,” Calladyce said. “He will not have total freedom. He will be forced to control his violent urges, to find another more noble way to live his life. Through his quest in the universe we have created, he will begin to learn who he really is and what he is truly capable of.”
Amy snorted. “I can pretty well guess what the likes of him are capable of. I’m just surprised he hasn’t killed anyone yet, but I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time.”
Calladyce shrugged his ursine shoulders. “Perhaps, perhaps not. Who knows what any of us are capable of, in the right circumstances? But like the rest of the unfortunate souls we have gathered here, Matias has the right to the chance of redemption, and redemption is very important to us at the Calladyce Foundation, Amy. Through our work, Matias has the chance to avoid being swallowed by the darkness altogether.”
“People don’t change,” Amy said, sullenly. “I just wish you and your mother could see that.”
Doctor Calladyce shook his head and chuckled. “You have such a jaded opinion on humanity for one so young and travelling across the first stepping stones of life, my dear Amy,” he said, grabbing hold of his raven-headed cane resting against the desk. He used it to help lift his huge bulk out of the leather chair he had been nestling in. “It is not a healthy outlook, my dear. You should learn to see the best in people.”
“I see the best in you, doctor,” Amy said, rising to her feet and helping the old man across the room to his private elevator. “You’re a good man. What you’ve created here is going to save the world.”
“August praise indeed,” Calladyce replied with a wry smile. He paused to catch his breath as the exertion of moving began to take its toll. “But I would have not been able to accomplish even the slightest fraction of the great work without your abilities, Amy. You are a true genius.”
“Nah, I’m just a geek girl computer dev from the back of beyond of Texas who caught a lucky break is all. I still can’t really believe I’m here, or that what we’re doing is actually real. It’s like some crazy dream.”
“Yes, it is a dream,” Doctor Calladyce said. He resumed his slow plod across the office. “Mother’s dream. Neither of us would be here today if not for her limitless vision. We have her to thank for the brave new step we are about to take.”
Amy glanced at the elevator. “Perhaps I’ll finally get the chance to meet your mother,” she said. “I’m sure she’ll want to be there when we immerse Matias. He’ll be our first test subject to ‘really’ enter the Alchemy Worlds, after all.”
“Mother will be watching,” Calladyce said, slipping free of the girl’s arm and lumbering over to stand in front of the DNA scanner lock. Recognising him, the gun metal doors of the elevator swished open. He stepped into the mahogany lined compartment and turned to face her. “Mother is always watching,” he added cryptically, as the doors slid shut.
Amy stood staring at the elevator for a few moments, trying to figure out what he meant before returning to her desk.
On impulse, she called up Matias’ file again and glowered at his image. “People don’t change,” she said to the hologram. “Especially people like you, psycho.”
Chapter II: Immersion
“Yo! Yo! Yo! Anyone alive up there?” Matias called out to the vast black emptiness. “I gotta take a piss!”
Silence answered him, and Matias bared his teeth in frustration. “Hey! I’m talking here! What’s going on? I got rights!”
Nothing stirred in the darkness around him, and Matias began to feel uneasy. A single large spotlight directed a harsh yellow beam directly down on him, and he could feel unseen eyes lurking beyond its glow, watching. It made his skin crawl.
“Come on, I’m a very busy man,” he said, forcing false bravado into his voice. “Don’t be shy, I don’t bite. Much.”
There was still no response, but animal instinct told him somebody was out there, scrutinising him like a bug under a microscope.
“Like what you see?” he added, flexing his biceps. “You want me to put on a little show for you? Is that it?”
That brought no reaction and he swore viciously. He tried walking out of the spotlight again, but as his bare foot touched its edge there was another crackle of energy and he was flung backwards onto his butt.
“No more games!” he roared, more humiliated than hurt. “What the hell do you want with me?”
“We want you to be better,” a man’s voice suddenly boomed from the darkness. “We want to make you better.”
Matias looked up, startled by the voice. It was the first human sound he had heard in at least twelve hours when the guards had pulled him out of solitary in the middle of the night. They had dragged him to this darkened room in the huge tower that rose up in the centre of the penitentiary and dumped him unceremoniously under the spotlight. They hadn’t even given him time to get dressed, and he had been left to wait in the icy cold in just his t-shirt and shorts. When he tried to explore his new surroundings, he found out the hard way that some kind of invisible energy barrier was in place around the circle of light. He was penned in like an animal.
“Finally,” he said to the darkness. “You’ve worked up the guts to talk to me. We gonna go all the way and show ourselves? Or are we too bashful?”
Up above and directly in front of where he was lying, several wall lights came to life, limning a metallic balcony in their ghostly blue glow. Matias got to his feet again. He could make out an overweight old dude in a tweed suit and yellow waistcoat sitting in a huge leather chair on the balcony.
Matias narrowed his eyes. “I know you,” he said. “You’re Calladyce, the goon who runs this freak show.”
“I am Doctor Calladyce, that is correct,” the old man replied, his voice amplified by the acoustics of the room. “But I am not the true power here, merely a humble servant working for the greater good.”
“Whatever, grandpa,” Matias sneered. “I’m cold and I need a piss, you wanna tell me what this is all about, or did you just want to look at my pretty face all night?”
“As handsome as you are, Mr. Temno, that is not the reason you are here,” said Calladyce.
“It’s time to begin your rehabilitation, Mr. Temno,” another voice spoke from the gloom. It was female, young, and whoever it belonged to sounded pretty.
Matias looked to his left as indeed a young, pretty woman emerged from the shadows and sauntered over to the spotlight to face him. She stood a few inches to where the invisible energy field began and the name tag pinned to her white and grey uniform told Matias that her name was Amy Fallon, Senior VR Development Coordinator—whatever the hell that meant.
Checking out her slender body, short spiky blonde hair and cute, elfish face, an appreciative grin spread across his face. “Hey babe,” he said, giving her a wink.
The nostrils of Amy’s snub nose flared a little and contempt danced in her powder blue eyes. “You got any better lines, Mr. Temno?”
“Please, call me Matias, Amy,” Matias said. He stretched and flexed his muscles, giving her a good view of his guns. “You don’t need lines when you look as good as me. How about you switch that nasty electric field off and we can get to know each other a little better. Gramps can watch if he wants, I’m an open-minded kinda dude.”
“Not today,” Amy replied. “Not ever. We have work to do.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot, my rehabilitation. Okay, well I promise to be a good boy from now on, scout’s honour,” Matias said. “Do I get a special treat?” he added, waggling his eyebrows at Amy.
Amy shot an irritated glance at the doctor, who let out a deep chuckle. “Show him,” he said, gesturing with one podgy hand.
Amy nodded and pressed the screen of the sleek grey tablet she was holding. The deep hum of power filled the room as more lights came to life. Matias had to cover his eyes from the harsh glare and it took several moments for his gaze to adjust to the stark illumination. When he loo
ked out at the room again, his heart missed a beat.
It was immensely huge, bigger than he had imagined; a vaulted chamber of pristine white walls held aloft by graceful columns of gleaming chrome. The wall to the left of him was mostly taken up by a large observation window beyond which Matias could see a sprawling control room that reminded him of those military command centres that he’d seen in hundreds of action movies where Bruce Willis had to save the world from nuclear Armageddon. Dozens of technicians in the same kind of uniform Amy was wearing sat hunkered down behind control screens, or skittered about excitedly checking over various kinds of computer equipment.
He must have looked as awed as he felt, because Amy was smiling at him. Matias quickly put on a mask of Stoic indifference and scanned the rest of the room.
Dozens of guards stood to attention around the white expanse, armed with those shock batons he knew so intimately and deeply loved. Their steely gazes were fixed solely on him, watching like hawks.
“How do you like it?” Doctor Calladyce called out across the room. The balcony he was sitting on doubled as a platform elevator and it was gliding down to the floor. When it reached the bottom, the balcony rail opened out of its own accord and Doctor Calladyce heaved himself out of the chair, using his cane as support.
“Like what?” Matias retorted. “All I see is a big-assed room and a bunch of techies playing with their hard drives.”
“Ah yes, we need to introduce you to the star attraction,” Calladyce said, coming over to join Amy. “If you would be so kind, my dear.”
Amy nodded and her fingers moved deftly over the tablet screen. Directly in front of Matias, a section of the floor slid open. A glowing pyramid of pale blue crystal—roughly the size of a pick-up truck—emerged, literally levitating out of the opening and moving up to hover in mid-air several feet above him.
Matias stared into its swirling, undulating surface, losing himself in its glittering depths. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and a dark tendril of fear tightened round his guts. The pyramid seemed to be watching him, and he had the overriding sense it was some kind of living organism. Ghostly voices whispered in his ears, muttering and jabbering incoherently. They seeped into his brain urging him to walk towards the massive shape.
The Alchemy Worlds: Enter T(he)rap(y): A LitRPG Adventure Page 1
