Shattered Lands: A LitRPG Series

by Darren Pillsbury

  In the videogame world of Shattered Lands, at least.

  2

  Chemistry passed quickly. It was one of the more interesting classes, largely owing to VR headsets. The school’s models were old and outdated, but they allowed you to stand in the middle of an endless black void and pluck marble, golf, and tennis-ball-sized atoms out of the air and combine them in simulated chemical reactions – or do the reverse and break molecules apart. Eric and Daniel spent the entire class fusing glowing orbs of carbon and oxygen into hexagons as the teacher droned on and on about benzene and aromatic compounds.

  Of course, it was made far more entertaining by the fact that Eric had hacked the internal code of their workstation the first week of the semester. Instead of bland spheres, they could assign different visuals to the elements and thus connect more ‘interesting’ things together – for instance, sea creatures like squid, Great Whites, and puffer fish.

  Today it was characters from Star Wars.

  “I’m telling you, man,” as Daniel broke apart a ring of oxygen Yodas and carbon Darth Vaders, “Shattered Lands is going to blow this kindergarten VR crap away.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Eric muttered.

  Suddenly a girl’s whisper punctured the endless darkness with its floating atomic particles. “Guys, log off for a second.”

  Daniel lifted his VR headset. There stood Jennifer Dale, the girl he had a crush on.

  She was a ballet dancer. She had taken classes ever since she was four, and had the lithe, graceful body to match. Locks of curly brown hair framed her delicate features, perfect lips, and the most beautiful blue eyes Daniel had ever seen.

  He immediately froze up.

  Eric was not quite as impressed.

  “What?” he asked curtly as he removed his VR headset.

  “There’s some talk that Trent is going to beat you two up after school,” she said, a worried look on her face.

  Jennifer wasn’t one of the ‘in crowd.’ She didn’t really belong to any of the vicious social cliques that ruled the female half of the high school, but she was pretty enough that she could mingle amongst them freely. She also got hit on relentlessly by the meathead jocks, though she had more of a taste for the bad boys – skaters and rocker dudes.

  Another reason Daniel felt utterly outclassed whenever he talked to her.

  “Uh… thanks?” Eric said sarcastically. “Are you delivering a message from the Neanderthal himself, or just doing a public service announcement for the obvious?”

  Jennifer gave him a withering look. “Maybe if someone weren’t such a jackass, someone might see this as a good reason to cut class and get the hell out of here. IF that someone didn’t have his head up his ass.”

  Daniel ordinarily would have snorted at the ‘head up his ass’ part – but something freaked him out before he got that far.

  “Cut class?” he asked in alarm, his voice rising in pitch. The idea was as foreign to him as suggesting he sprout wings and fly away off a cliff.

  Jennifer looked at him sideways like she couldn’t figure him out. “Yeah…?”

  Eric raised his eyebrows. “Huh… that’s not a bad idea…”

  “Well, it’s either that or get your face pounded in,” Jennifer said tartly. Then she flashed a friendly smile at Daniel. “Don’t get your face pounded in. I like it the way it is.”

  Daniel blushed and stuttered. “Uh – th-thanks…”

  “What about mine?” Eric asked in mock indignation.

  “Yours could use some adjusting,” she said with a smirk. Then she immediately turned somber. “Seriously, guys – I’d think about making it an early day.”

  “Thanks,” Daniel said, eloquent as he always was around her.

  Eric grumbled something, and then she was off, giving one last wave over her shoulder before she walked back across the room to her chemistry partner.

  “Wooooo, smooth talker,” Eric whispered.

  “Shut up,” Daniel said, annoyed.

  “She has a point, though. You think we should do it?”

  “Do what?” Daniel said, still watching his would-be girlfriend in a dopamine-infused haze.

  “Bug out early.”

  “No!” Daniel said, jolted back to the here and now.

  Eric looked grim as he watched Jennifer put on her headset again. “Yeah, it kind of sucks that she just expects us to cut and run…” Then he brightened. “On the other hand, it’d give us more time to play Shattered Lands.”

  Daniel gave him a sideways glance. “I thought you weren’t that into it.”

  “I’m more into that than getting my face pounded in.”

  Daniel considered it silently for a second.

  “…okay… I guess…”

  Eric grinned. “What? Really? Mr. Follows Every Rule Like His Life Depended On It is gonna cut class?”

  Daniel ignored the jibe. “All I’ve got left after this is gym and study hall, so… yeah. I think I can do it.”

  “Woooo, wild man. ‘Let’s break the rules as long as it’s only gym and study hall.’”

  “Keep talking and we won’t cut at all,” Daniel threatened.

  “Hey, your face is the one that’s too pretty to mess up,” Eric said with a snicker. “Mine could use ‘adjusting.’”

  “Shut up,” Daniel hissed, his cheeks blushing pink all over again.

  “She is so into you – why don’t you just ask her out?”

  “I will.”

  “Riiiiight.” Suddenly Eric got an idea. “Wait – hold on – ”

  He leaned over and started typing on the keyboard for the workstation. After about 30 seconds, the Darth Vader atoms turned to Daniel’s face distorted to helium balloon proportions, and all the Yodas turned to Jennifers.

  Eric grabbed a Daniel atom and connected it lip to lip CLICK! with a Jennifer atom. Then he started speaking in a fake feminine voice.

  “Oooh, Daniel, do your double bonds with my six-carbon ring – ohhhh…”

  “HEY!” Daniel yelped. He lifted his helmet in panic to make sure Jennifer couldn’t see any of this – which was stupid, because of course she couldn’t. “CUT THAT OUT!”

  Eric, laughing, started stacking more atoms together. “Oh, Daniel, your sigma bonds are so BIG…”

  “STOP IT!” Daniel said, unable to keep from laughing himself.

  Eric started making rings of Daniels and Jennifers. Just as quickly, Daniel started throwing atoms off into the black void, out of Eric’s reach.

  Needless to say, they didn’t get much else done before the end of class.

  3

  Skipping out early wasn’t that hard. They just had to avoid whatever teacher was on duty roaming the parking lot looking for class-cutters.

  Daniel had a space in the honors student lot, where the top 50 kids in the senior class got an automatic spot. And since honor students rarely cut class, the teachers mostly patrolled the bigger lot where the regular kids got their parking spaces by lottery. The Trent Lockners of the world, in other words.

  Daniel and Eric waited in the bushes by the science wing of the school, which was right next to the honors parking lot. Finally the last bell rang for 5th period. When they saw the coast was clear, they raced over to Daniel’s Tesla Q27, the newest sports model the company had put out. Daniel unlocked it with a voice command, the gull-wing doors opened, and he and Eric piled in quickly.

  “Hello, Daniel. Hello, Eric,” the soothing voice of the car’s onboard computer said.

  “Shut the door, shut the door!” Daniel babbled, looking over his shoulder to make sure the teacher wasn’t coming.

  The doors glided down silently and locked.

  “Drive home!” Daniel ordered.

  The car pulled out of its parking spot, moved silently through the student lot, and merged seamlessly with the flow of traffic on the main street.

  “Phew,” Daniel sighed, genuinely relieved at their getaway.

  He looked over at Eric, who was staring at the other cars in the l
ot as they passed the school.

  Daniel didn’t have to ask. He knew what Eric was thinking, because it was one of his best friend’s sore spots that came up regularly:

  I should have one of those spots.

  It was true. Eric was one of the top ten students at Marsden High. He didn’t even care that much about school, and yet he was still in contention for salutatorian. He would have automatically qualified for a parking spot, hands down, except for one thing:

  His parents couldn’t afford a car. Not even one of those old gasoline-powered clunkers from a used lot, where you had to drive the car yourself. In fact, Eric’s parents could barely afford anything.

  Marsden High was one of the state’s best schools. Even though it was public, Marsden was in a wealthy suburb and rivaled the best private schools available. Eric’s parents struggled to pay the mortgage on their tiny condo just so they could live in the school district. And with an older brother already in college, with no scholarship money to help…

  Daniel felt bad sometimes about his comparatively lavish lifestyle. Despite his new sports car, he wasn’t materialistic, and he realized he had it good. His father was the head of behavioral systems tech at Varidian – the company that was putting out Shattered Lands – and he made enough for them to live in a huge house in an expensive neighborhood. Not to mention his mom was a corporate lawyer, so basically Daniel wanted for nothing.

  The difference in what each of them had – like cars and parking spaces – didn’t come up very often, but when it did, it was kind of a touchy subject.

  Which is why Daniel hoped the surprise he had planned wouldn’t rub his best friend the wrong way.

  “So – what are you going to start off as?” Daniel asked as the car turned into his neighborhood.

  “Huh?” Eric asked, pulled out of his daydream.

  “In the game. A human? An elf? Some new race?”

  Eric looked back out the window at the multi-million dollar houses flashing by. “I don’t know…”

  Trying to distract his friend, Daniel started thinking out loud. “I’m thinking I’ll just start off as a human first. You know, just to get the lay of the land. My dad said they’ve totally rebuilt the gaming engine from the ground up. You’re not locked into a class the way you are with other MMORPGs.”

  “Huh…” Eric said as he continued looking out the window.

  They drove up to the guardhouse at the front of Daniel’s gated community. Daniel exchanged waves with the guard, and the iron gates opened up and let them through.

  A few minutes later the car pulled into Daniel’s driveway and the three-car garage opened, silent as a whisper. The car self-parked, and the boys got out and walked over to the entrance to the house.

  A male British voice said, “Welcome home, Daniel. Hello, Eric,” as the deadbolt automatically slid open. Daniel opened the door and they strode into the kitchen.

  Eric looked around silently – something he did almost every time he entered the house, as though seeing it for the first time.

  The kitchen and breakfast nook was beautiful and spacious. Twenty-foot high ceilings, with a huge bay window that looked out over an acre of woods and perfectly manicured lawn.

  “You want something to eat before we start?” Daniel asked as he pulled a bag of chips out of the pantry and opened the fridge to retrieve a soda can.

  “Sure…” Eric said as he walked over to the bay window and stared outside. The trees started sparsely about twenty feet away, then quickly turned into a dense forest. He and Daniel had snuck through the woods dozens of times as kids so they could get out of Daniel’s neighborhood without passing by the guard at the gate.

  “Why are you so down, man?” Daniel asked as he ripped open the bag of chips and dug in for a handful. “You should be pumped.”

  For some reason Daniel’s question set off an acid burning in Eric’s stomach. “Maybe because I get to watch a computer screen of you while you’re having the time of your life?”

  Daniel frowned. “I told you we’ll take turns.”

  “What, you’re going to interrupt some bad-ass quest so I can get in 15 minutes of farting around?”

  “I said it’d be fifty-fifty.”

  Eric sighed. “Look… I really appreciate what you’re trying to do, but…”

  “But what?”

  Eric paused, then shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “No, what?”

  “It just sucks,” Eric said morosely. “My dad’s never going to be able to afford a headset for the new system… OR the game… OR the monthly subscription. Playing an hour here and there is going to be like dying of thirst in the desert, and then they just give you a spoonful of water at a time. Maybe it’s better if I don’t play at all.”

  Daniel broke out into a grin. “Well, maybe you’ll be happier when you see what I got you, then.”

  Eric looked over in shock. “What?”

  “Come on.”

  Daniel gestured with his hand for Eric to follow him, then walked out of the kitchen.

  “What did you do?” Eric called out after him, almost in alarm.

  No answer.

  Eric basically ran after his friend. “Hey – what did you do, Daniel?”

  Daniel was laughing as he ran up the stairs to the second floor.

  By the time Eric caught up to him, Daniel had opened the door to one of the house’s spare bedrooms.

  Inside were two twin beds with hi-tech, next-gen Varidian headsets lying on the covers. They were the premium model, $20,000 apiece.

  Next to the beds sat two computer towers, all black metal and blinking blue lights, which were connected to the headsets via long cables.

  Eric just stared in wonderment. “What the hell, man?!”

  Daniel laughed. “Delivered last night. I set ‘em up so they’d be ready when we got home.”

  Eric walked over to one of the beds and picked up the headset in a daze. It was beautiful, a sleeker version of the bulky headset they’d used in chemistry class – except this one was all gunmetal grey and shiny onyx.

  “This the top of the line model! This is, like… forty grand worth of equipment in here!”

  “My dad’s got an employee discount. He decided to splurge so he and I can play together at the same time. And when he’s not around… you can use his.”

  Eric stared at the headset in wonder, like a kid at Christmas holding the present he never thought he would get, wondering if it was even real.

  Then he frowned slightly and looked over at his friend. “Your dad works 70 hours a week.”

  Daniel shrugged. “Yeah, so?”

  “He didn’t get these for you and him. You got him to buy them for you and me.”

  Daniel tried to suppress a smile, but couldn’t. “Maybe.”

  Eric had to turn away, he was so overcome. He didn’t want Daniel to see the tears welling up his eyes.

  “…are you sure?”

  Daniel put his hand on Eric’s shoulder. “You’re my best friend, man. Of course I’m sure. I wouldn’t want to do it without you.”

  Eric surreptitiously wiped the tears from his eyes, then said, “Okay.”

  Daniel grinned and walked over to his own headset. “Wanna fire ‘em up and get this party started?”

  “Hell YEAH,” Eric laughed as he picked up a headset.

  4

  They each put on one of the headsets and lay back on their own individual beds.

  Just like the VR models at school, the interior of the helmet was opaque and designed to completely shut out all light – except this model also closed off all sound. Once you put on the helmet, you were enclosed in a cocoon of total darkness and silence.

  A pleasant female voice spoke in Daniel’s ear. “Welcome to the Varidian X5000. Do you wish to continue with full sensory immersion?”

  “Yes,” Daniel said.

  “Thank you. Calibrating.”

  A slight buzzing sensation filled his head, like he’d drunk too much Coke and w
as on a caffeine and sugar rush. Then the feeling subsided, only to be replaced with a coolness like lukewarm water was filling his body.

  “Calibration complete.”

  Suddenly his field of vision faded in from complete darkness to complete white. He looked around in wonder, then down at himself. He was dressed in a nondescript grey jumpsuit.

  “Welcome to the staging area. All players begin here. First, we need to create a character for you. We require that for the first 24 hours of game play, you play as yourself in order to limit the disorienting effects of the full sensory immersion experience. After the first 24 hours of game play, you will have grown accustomed to full sensory immersion and you will be allowed to either continue as yourself, or to alter your species and gender.”

  Daniel thought about that for a second and figured it was smart. There definitely had to be guys out there who would choose to be a female character just so they could feel themselves up.

  In fact, it was sort of a tempting thought…

  The computer’s voice interrupted his daydreams. “First we need to register you. What is your full name?”

  He gave the computer his information, including address, age, and even high school – apparently to hook up with other players in the same area, if he wanted to.

  “Please choose a user name. User names may be altered at any time in-game.”

  Huh, Daniel thought. They don’t usually let you do that.

  “Daniel,” he said, for lack of anything better that came to mind.

  “Thank you, Daniel. Please select appropriate clothing. Other choices may be acquired in-game. Please take into account that the current season in the Shattered Lands is springtime.”

  Out of nowhere, clothes appeared in the white nothingness in front of him. The clothes looked absolutely realistic, down to wrinkles and individual woven threads.

  There were five choices of each kind hovering in a semi-circle around him: five shirts, ranging from cotton to linen to silk. Six inches below the shirts were five pairs of pants, from leather to wool. And underneath those, shoes and boots in five different styles.