Another alarm sounded, this one nothing like the shift change claxon. This one sounded menacing. Dante’s pocket vibrated and he reached into his pocket for his phone, a reflex triggered by desperate fear and impossible hope that somehow, someone would save them.
“Idiot!” Holly shrieked, grabbing his arm. “Your phone?” she pulled Dante along and he stumbled after.
“Other way,” the message said. Dante almost ran into one of the gruesome tanks when he saw the caller ID identified Virgil as the sender.
“This way!” Dante said, pulling away and heading back the other way, the still glowing screen clutched in his other hand.
The phone buzzed again. “Turn right.”
Dante turned right and the two came up short at the far end of the room.
“Shit!” Holly exclaimed, for the first time, sounding panicked. “What do we do?”
They both jumped at a scraping sound to their right. In the dim light, they’d raced straight past the thin line of a doorway with no handle. That doorway pulled itself into the wall and opened with a hiss. They pushed through as soon as the opening was big enough and the door closed as soon as they reached the other side.
Dante banged his nose against a hot pipe and cursed. “Service tunnel,” he observed.
“Ya think?” Holly said.
“Thank god,” Dante said, “You still have your sarcasm.”
Holly snickered in spite of herself and punched Dante hard in the shoulder. He was used to that now, and moved just enough. “No fair,” he said. “I can’t hit you back.”
“Try sometime,” Holly said, as she started moving to the right, down the corridor.
“Why that way?” Dante asked.
“Why not?” Holly replied.
Chapter 10
Corey tugged at the tape holding the box together. After a frustrating minute spent trying to dig his stubby nails under the edge, then another five pawing through the kitchen drawers in search of a pair of scissors, he finally stabbed the seam with his keys, then yanked the split open with his fingers. Puffs of packing foam spilled out as Corey lifted the small device out with an air of wonder.
“Dayum….” he whispered.
The small unit reflected light with the uniform shine of a brand new item. It wasn’t like any piece of equipment he’d ever seen before. The hard, gloss plastics were obviously high quality and fit perfectly with the metal components. The only seams between sleek plastic covering revealed seams of gold. Real gold. Corey had an eye for it. He knew a printed gold circuit when he saw one.
“I don’t know what this is, but I like it.” Corey grinned as he handled the small machine, his face eventually creasing into a frown as he realised he had no idea what it was. For perhaps the first time in his life, he took the advice of his girlfriend and went diving back through the box for the instructions.
“Gotcha,” he exclaimed, withdrawing a large envelope from the box. It was made from heavy card stock, embossed with the company logo. He ripped it open impatiently and drew out the card inside.
Mr. Barnes,
As a vital part of the Nine Realms Community, you have been specifically selected to take part in the beta test of an exciting new technology. Within this package is a device called a Virtual Reality Harness. The harness will allow you to experience the Realm as never before.
In this one time event, selected members have the chance to not only own the new Virtual Reality Harness ™ but you will also receive a lifetime subscription to the game. This membership is non-transferable and only valid for your own use.
To accept the harness and activate your membership, simply log into the game using it and accept and complete the quest offered to you by Virgil, the Realm Interface. The instructions for using the harness are overleaf.
Corey flipped the card over as the note suggested. It showed him how to wear it and connect it directly to his computer using WiFi. Once done, he logged into the game.
He didn’t bother to search through the rest of the box. Had he done so, he would have found another envelope. Its contents would have raised more questions and changed his motivations entirely.
***
Corey sucked in a deep breath and held it, not willing to trust what he saw. Everything around him was so real. The room before him, the plain walls and ornate door, all of it was familiar, yet not. He blinked, then rubbed a hand over his face.
Instead of a hard plastic device, he felt flesh. Not Corey’s flesh, either. The skin on his face prickled under his fingers around his chin, though Corey himself was always clean shaven. His hand moved to the side of his head, heart racing wildly. When he touched the delicate, pointed tips of his ears, Corey screamed.
“Yes! Oh my God, YES! I got pointy ears!” He erupted into a spontaneous dance that quickly withered when he spun to come face to face with a white-bearded man, face flat with disapproval. “Oh. Sorry, yo.”
The man raised an eyebrow and Corey leaned closer, something about the old guy twigging his memory. The robes… they were…
“Virgil?” Corey asked, drop-jawed.
“Yes, I am Virgil.” The interface voice sounded the same, superficially, but there was something more complex about it, some kind of emotion or personality that wasn’t usually present. “If you are finished dancing, perhaps you would like to see the quest?”
“Wow,” Thuglar said with a laugh. “This rig even upgrades your personality.”
“Quite.”
Virgil’s dry answer stifled a little of Corey’s joy. “Oh. Sorry, man,” he said again. “Show me the quest, please.” Kalmond might make fun of him for doing it, but Corey’s mama had raised him right. Courtesy was important for the sake of form. There was a time to be loose with speech, and a time to tighten it up. It didn’t matter if this was a game or not. Somebody from the company might check the logs later.
“You will seek the Chalice of Forms. Your quest will begin here.”
A semi-transparent map exploded before Thuglar’s eyes. It was a map of the Circles, and a red blinking dot showed his destination. A seed of worry embedded in his gut when he saw where it was.
“That’s the Giant’s Toe Mountain,” he said aloud to confirm.
“Yes,” Virgil replied.
Corey eyed him warily. “And this is the quest I have to do? To keep the VR rig?”
“I created the circlet and sent it to you so that you could assist with this task, yes.”
“Wait, what? You never sent me nothin. That letter said it was a company thing, a selection of gamers.”
“The deception was needed, I’m afraid. You will find out more as you complete the chain of quests. Or, you may choose to pass the device to another, less worthy player.”
“No way am I giving this up!” Thuglar ignored the very real feeling that something wasn’t right. This was too good. An opportunity like this was once in a lifetime and he didn’t intend to be the dope who passed it up. “I accept the quest, thanks, Virgil.”
A corner of Virgil’s lips flickered into a smile so brief Thuglar almost believed he’d imagined it. A moment later, Virgil and everything around him vanished, to be replaced with the lush greenery of The Toe.
Virgil’s disembodied voice seemed to come from every object. “Find the Chalice of Forms. The Monster must not drink from it.”
Thuglar reeled at the sudden shift, leaning forwards to put his leather-gloved hands on his knees while his head stopped spinning. A moment later he’d re-oriented, and stood to take in the incredible experience he’d been thrust into. The smell of damp leaves and animal scat assaulted his nose as he carefully patted down his armor, seeing where everything was and how it fit. He reached into his bag and pulled out his inventory, almost fumbling the small satchel when the oversized screen sprang out. He ran on the spot, drew his weapons and made a couple of quick attacks on a nearby tree and quickly figured out how to activate his spells.
As he tested out the new interface, Thuglar kept a close eye out for enemies, though none appeared.
He’d have felt better if this had been done in the safety of the starting zone, but he’d been too wrapped up in the experience to think of it.
“Wonder if this is what Dante does all day. Bet he’d have thought of testing this stuff out before he left.”
Only when satisfied he could put up a decent fight, access his health potions and fade out from a fight did he step out of the small cluster of foliage he’d been dropped in. A quick scout around revealed his position as about half way up the mountain. He decided to go up and head for the area he’d been mysteriously called to the last time he was in-game, figuring it was just too much of a coincidence that he’d be back here only a day later, on a strange quest, from an even stranger-acting NPC.
He crested the top of the mountain with little effort. A small group of kobolds camped in his path were kind enough to chase a misdirection trap he laid, leaving him to pass unnoticed and the only wildlife he encountered were some deer. They were passive to elves, but he shot one with an arrow just to make sure he could fight.
The deer, enraged by the attack, bounded towards him. The animal’s strong muscles rippled and steam billowed around the snorting mouth as it charged. Filled with anxious excitement, Thuglar crouched, hands spread as balls of fire brewed in each one, the heat warming his fingers without burning them. The deer’s hind muscles bunched as it prepared to leap.
“Cast Fireballs!” Thuglar hurled both hands forwards, pushing the newly-upgraded spell out and sending the magical weapons flying towards his target. They hit simultaneously, and the deer screamed and tumbled forwards onto it’s face. The fireballs scored double criticals.
A red zero appeared over the animal’s head as it heaved and let out one last whimper, a big eye turned accusingly towards Thuglar as it clouded over in death. Taken by the sight, Thuglar ignored the line of text that flashed up to tell him he’d won the battle. For once, he took no pride in it. The dying creature seemed all-too-real. He shook off the feeling, reminding himself it was just a game.
That was difficult to do, as the smell of blood wakened his elven senses. “How do I bring up my character stats?” Corey asked, more to distract himself from the cloying odour than because he needed them right then.
The text appearing before him brushed against his nose. He suspected the wooden letters would have injured him had he not jumped back. “OK,” Corey said, “that was freaky.”
He noticed that his perception value read (+3). He was about to ask the game interface how to access the desert elf character description when the sound of rustling brush reached his ears. Whirling towards the sound, Thuglar drew his lightning saber, batting at the wall of text that moved with him, obscuring his vision. “Go away!” he hissed, and the stat board did just that.
A wood elf lept from the undergrowth and attacked with terrifying speed, a glowing dirk in each hand. Thuglar parried one dirk, then another. He watched with dismay as the condition of his saber dropped five points.
“Stop!” Corey shouted, thinking the elf must be another player. “I’m on a quest!” Instead of striking with his sword, he kicked the attacker, buying some distance.
It dawned slowly on Thuglar that the wood elf was not human. A chat bar appeared over its head, but the curling flourish above the text indicated an NPC.
“What do you seek?” the wood elf asked.
Apparently, it was possible for Desert Elves in a virtual reality world to develop gooseflesh. Thuglar’s skin prickled beneath his armor. NPCs never responded directly to human speech. Usually, the answers were canned and just vague enough to seem like a response from a real human.
“I seek the Chalice of Forms,” Corey replied uncertainly.
The wood elf left his fighting stance and sheathed his Dirks. “You are one of the Noble?”
Corey snickered and said, “Yeah, sure.”
The wood elf nodded with a sage expression. More crashing through the brush brought Thuglar to a fighting stance again. Only this time, a familiar form bounded into the small clearing.
“Thornbark?” Thuglar asked, marveling at the centaur as he pranced into the open.
“Thuglar! Isn’t this VR rig amazing?” Thornbark exclaimed.
“Wait. You have an immersion rig too?”
“Yes. Virgil told me you would be along shortly. He calls our world the Lesser Realm.’ Isn’t that rad?”
The gooseflesh changed to something else that was not thrilling, but fearful. “Something’s wrong, Thornbark. This ain’t right. It makes no sense.”
“I was told the Noble Four would save the Nine Circles from the corruption of the Lesser Realm,” the wood elf said. “But you sound fearful.” The NPC backed away and his hands moved towards his weapons again.
Thornbark laughed. “This is awesome,” he said. “The NPCs sound so real now.”
“They do,” Corey said urgently. “Too real. Computers don’t work like this. This is something else.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know this shit, man, and that’s just not how it works. I’m a computer scientist,” Corey said. For the first time in his life, he didn’t downplay his knowledge. He’d studied computer science on his free time—he’d never had the money for college, but why pay when the information you needed was at the tip of your fingers anyway? His deep understanding of technology had taught him that computers could not be programmed to behave this way. At least, not yet. It occurred to him that this may be some new technology of which he was not aware. Either that, or it was something else entirely.
“Save game,” Thuglar said. Nothing happened.
Catching on, Thornbark also tried to save his progress. Nothing.
“Exit game!” Corey shouted. Nothing again.
Thornbark’s face fell. He backed away. The wood elf drew his Dirks. “Deceivers! He shouted.”
“No!” Corey bellowed, stepping between the two. He downed a Potion of Persuasion as quickly as he could. “We are of the Noble. You will assist us!”
The wood elf relented, and Corey watched his charisma skill level rise by a point as the blue-hued wood figures appeared before his eyes, then faded away.
“You’re leveling up!” Thornbark exclaimed as game elements pushed back against his fear.
“You can see that?” Thuglar asked.
“Yes. I couldn’t before,” Thornbark replied.
“OK,” Thuglar said. “No denying it.” He fought down the rising panic, tried to think logically. “We’re stuck here. We can’t exit the the game, so let’s play. If we can complete the quest, they might let us leave… whoever ‘they’ are.”
“Ask the three questions,” Thornbark said.
“Good Idea,” Corey said. “Virgil, give us our three clues.”
The Wizard appeared this time in his inn-keep garb. He stood on the ground between the three in tattered sandals, hands clasped around the chest-folds of his coarse tunic.
“Ask of me these questions three,” he said with a smirk and twinkle to his eye.
“Where do we find the chalice?” Thornbark blurted out.
“The chalice is crushed beneath a giant’s toe. Deep is it ground into the earth.”
“Caverns,” Corey said.
“The answer to your second question is ‘yes’,” the Wizard replied.
“I didn’t ask a question! That wasn’t a question!” Corey exclaimed.
Virgil was undeterred. “Ask question the third,” he said, leaning on a staff that materialized with a snap of his fingers.
“Make it a good one,” Thornbark said. Corey glared at him. “Wow, your facial expressions are so real,” Thornbark gushed.
Corey closed his eyes, thought for a moment, then asked, “What is so important about this chalice?”
“The chalice reveals the true form of those who drink from it. Using it in battle will allow one to join Mylos where he dwells and defeat him. The questions have been asked.” Virgil raised his staff above his head and dissolved into a swirl of sparkling vapor.
&
nbsp; “That was a stupid question,” Thornbark said.
“No,” Corey replied. “It wasn’t. If we find that chalice, we can wake up. You said it yourself, our world is the ‘Lesser Realm’, right?” Thornbark nodded. “What do you think is happening to our bodies right now?”
“Oh…” Thornbark said.
“Wood elf,” Corey said, turning to the possible ally. “Lead us to the caverns here.” Reaching into his backpack, he plucked out the inventory screen and poked at a symbol in the bottom corner. The button unfurled a game map that revealed the immediate terrain. Much of the map in this region was still fogged, as Corey hadn’t explored this far. The path up the Plateau was clearly visible, but the glowing triangle that marked the entrance to the caverns was black.
The elf turned without a word and strode into the forest. Thornbark cast a quick reveal magic spell, and instantly, the party wished he hadn’t. The woods exploded with motion and the shadows turned gray.
“Homunculus!” Thornbark called out as he activated his bow and arrow.
The vicious gray creatures were too fast. Three of them latched on to Thornbark, two at his hind quarters and one at his chest. They raked at his flesh with their sword-like arms and the bony daggers that were their feet. Their oddly childlike faces quickly turned bloody as their pointy teeth ripped into Thornbark’s hide.
“It hurts! For real! Get them off me!” Thornbark screamed, his voice rising to an equine timbre.
Corey had no choice. He blasted Thornbark with a level two fire spell, praying the low-level spell wouldn't hurt the centaur too badly. The ploy worked. The Homunculus broke off their attack and regrouped. The victory was short-lived, as their shrieks of pain brought more homunculus from the brush. Six more appeared.
The wood elf charged forward into the thick of the attack, swinging his dirks as he went. It was a bad choice. The melee weapons scored damage, killing two, but the elf took major damage himself. The moves cost him 25% of his health and all of his endurance.
“Run!” he bellowed as he slashed and whirled.
“No way,” Thornbark replied as Corey circled around to see what he could do.
Realm of the Nine Circles: A LitRPG Novel Page 9
