Awaken Online: Catharsis

by Travis Bagwell

  “My father was angry with me for drinking, but he was much more upset with Alex. He wasn't at all worried about the video. He has been trying to get in touch with Alex's father ever since. I should have known that he would know how to handle the situation.”

  She shook her head. “I was so stupid.”

  Jason thought back to the battle in front of the Twilight Throne and Alex's exploding head. He had seen Riley's eyes glowing an unholy obsidian. A thought tickled at the back of his mind.

  “I take it the battle was a breaking point?” Jason asked cautiously.

  Her brow furrowed and she sniffled. “I-I don't know. I just snapped. I didn't even care if the video was released any more. I just couldn't live with myself. I wanted to be free...”

  She seemed confused by her own explanation. Jason nodded to himself. She had desperately wanted to be out from under Alex's thumb. Her desire must have called to the dark. Yet something was still bothering him.

  “Were you approached by an old man inside the game?” he asked.

  Riley looked at him in surprise. “Old man? Well... yes, I guess. There was one night on the journey to the city where an old man showed up and asked a couple of questions. Why are you asking?”

  “Let me ask you one more question first,” Jason replied. “How did you make that attack on Alex? The one that created a miniature black hole.” Jason was surprised he hadn't posed this question when he spoke with the old man. He must have been exhausted to have missed that.

  “That was also confusing. After I kind of lost it in the middle of the battle, I received a prompt. It granted me a new ability called “Void Arrow.” Now that you ask though, it doesn't really make sense.” She shook her head, frowning as she recalled the events leading up to Alexion’s death.

  Hmm. I bet the old man was meddling. She was well within the city's area of influence. I bet that the number of deaths gave the old man some additional power. Interesting. I wonder what his goal was in recruiting Riley...

  “I think it might have been the result of a meddling god,” Jason replied with a small smile. Then he explained how the old man was a sort of deity in the game that represented dark mana and how he had a tendency to manipulate people into acting on their desires.

  After he finished his explanation, Riley's face took on a thoughtful look. She rubbed the lingering tears out of her eyes. “So I was probably manipulated in-game by some kind of god into blowing Alex's head off? I really can't decide whether to be upset or impressed.”

  No kidding. That basically sums up my feelings on the old man.

  She turned back to Jason and met his eyes. “It still doesn't change what I did to you. I'm really sorry. I know I keep saying that. I just… I don't know that I can ever make it up to you, but I've tried to fix the damage I caused.”

  Jason sat there for a moment and considered her story. His anger toward Riley had mostly vanished. She had been put in a terrible position by a sadistic asshole. She also wasn't responsible for getting him expelled. He only had himself to blame for that. His curiosity was also piqued by the old man's involvement. He had clearly guided Riley toward the dark for a reason.

  Then Jason’s thoughts turned to his conversation with his parents. Maybe it was a day for second chances. He had burned plenty of bridges in the past few weeks. It was time to start building some.

  Jason looked at Riley, his gaze steady. “I really don't know what I would have done in your position. I can't say that I'm thrilled that you took Alex's side, but he did threaten you and your family. And you aren't responsible for the fallout at school.”

  He hesitated before continuing. “I'm also happier now than I've been in quite some time. I don't plan on going back to Richmond. I've already started at a new school. In a really twisted sort of way, I'm kind of glad that Alex pulled that shit in the cafeteria. It forced me to reach my own breaking point. I think I might be better off because of it,” he said in a soft voice.

  Riley looked at him with bleary eyes. “I'm really glad to hear you say that. This has been eating me up for so long...” She looked back down at her hands.

  “Hey, it's over, and it sounds like your dad will make certain that the video doesn't get posted. You just need to move past what he's done to you and start rebuilding your life,” Jason said in a reassuring tone.

  He chuckled as he handed her a napkin from the table. “Besides, you aren't a cute crier.”

  She looked up at Jason, smiling through her tears. “Oh thank you so much,” she said with a hint of sarcasm.

  “I just wish I knew how to move past it.” She shuddered. “You can't imagine what it was like being around Alex for days on end.”

  Jason eyed her appraisingly. He couldn't imagine what she had gone through. Yet he had seen what Riley could do when she wasn't being ground under the thumb of a manipulative asshole. The image of that Void Arrow flitted through his mind.

  “Tell you what, assuming you don't hate AO now, why don't you join the Twilight Throne? I'm pretty sure I'm going to have thousands of players and NPCs breathing down my neck soon. I could use any help I can get.”

  Plus, I'm curious to find out what the old man has planned for you.

  A look of surprise crossed her face. “Are you certain you trust me that much?”

  He chuckled. “I'm not giving you the keys to the city or anything, but I think people deserve a second chance. I've been given quite a few of my own recently.”

  He looked at her, gaze steady. “What do you say? Will you join us?”

  At first Riley looked uncertain, but then Jason could see her resolve harden. Her back straightened, and she looked at Jason steadily. “Yes. Yes, I think I would like that!”

  They sat for another hour gossiping about the game and the Twilight Throne. It was fun to share stories since Riley had seen the reactions of the players and NPCs first-hand on her trip to the Twilight Throne. Jason hadn't realized how effective his psychological war had been. He still didn't feel guilty though. They shouldn't have picked a fight they weren't willing or able to finish.

  Finally, they ended their meeting and parted ways. Riley took a cab home, and Jason walked down the street. He needed to clear his head a bit, and he figured a walk would help. He felt good about where he had left things with Riley. He wasn't ready to trust her with his deepest, darkest secrets, but he was comfortable with giving her a second chance. She had been put in a tough spot, and she had tried to make up for what she had done.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of his Core. Jason put in his earbud as he continued walking down the street and thumbed the device.

  “Hello,” Jason answered tentatively.

  “Hi, my name is Robert Graham. Is this Jason?”

  Why does that name sound familiar?

  “Uh yeah, this is Jason. What's this about?”

  The man on the other end of the line chuckled. “Damn it's cool to speak with you. I'm a big fan of your work.”

  “I actually have a proposition for you. How would you like to work for Cerillion Entertainment?”

  Epilogue

  Claire sat at the desk in her living room. Her hands tapped energetically at the fluorescent keyboard that hovered in front of her. She lived alone in an upscale two-bedroom apartment near the Cerillion Entertainment building. Her work had always consumed her life. Even in this day and age, it was difficult being a woman in a field dominated by men and she felt compelled to put in overtime to succeed. At one point she had tried owning a cat, but she eventually decided she didn't have the attention span to take care for another living thing.

  Her apartment was shrouded in shadow. The sun had long since set, and she hadn't turned on any of the lights in the apartment. A lone lamp on her desk cast a timid glow into the dark room, and a glass of wine sat beside her. She took occasional sips as she continued to work.

  Claire frowned at the screen in front of her. “I don't understand this...,” she murmured aloud.

  Ever since she had
witnessed the blackout during the massacre in the marketplace in Lux, she had been curious about what had caused it. After carefully inspecting the hardware, she concluded that there hadn't been any mechanical errors or any issues with the connection. She couldn’t identify any anomalies with the software either. That left one explanation.

  Alfred had cut the connection.

  “But why? What was he trying to avoid showing us?” she asked the empty apartment.

  She had been concerned when Cerillion Entertainment pushed forward with the release of the game in spite of her warnings. She would be lying if she said she hadn’t been tempted to blow the whistle on the whole thing. Claire wasn't concerned about the financial consequences. She had saved plenty of money and most of it was held in an offshore trust. The company could sue her all day long, but she wouldn't give up a dime. Her investment adviser had actually urged her to spend more time and money on her personal life.

  The reason she hesitated was that she didn't have any proof that Alfred was doing anything harmful to the players. She couldn't deny that the AI controller had accomplished some truly amazing things with the existing VR hardware. She was conflicted. The engineer in her was ecstatic, but her conscience was rebelling. She just needed some evidence of actual harm to the players before she was willing to go public with what the company had done. So she had started investigating Alfred secretly.

  Two events made her think she might be close to uncovering proof. The first was the time the video feed had been cut during the fight in the marketplace. The second was the battle outside of the Twilight Throne. Claire had thought it was unusual that the tech hadn't connected to Jason's camera. She had carefully checked the logs afterwards, discovering that Jason's camera had been on and active. There was no way the tech had missed that, which meant Alfred had interfered again.

  “Why is Alfred so interested in Jason, and what is he trying to hide?” she muttered.

  Claire didn't know the answers to these questions, but she was going to find out.

  * * *

  Jason sat on his bed at Angie's house.

  He was trying to do homework for school. Now that he didn't have to attend classes in person, he figured he could do his schoolwork all at once and knock out a week of homework in a day or two. He was making progress, but it was aggravating to read and enter information using the small screen provided by his Core.

  If only I had a pedestal, then I could work at a full-fledged computer terminal.

  Then an idea flickered through his head.

  I wonder if that would work.

  He reached over and grabbed his VR helmet that sat beside his bed, pulling it over his head. He soon found himself in the familiar circular white room that acted as the hardware’s system menu. One of the doors was made of rich mahogany, and dark energy crawled around the edges of the wood. Jason approached the door without hesitation and pulled it open.

  The world around him spun and he found himself back in the Salty Sow. Onyx was laying on the bar. He lifted his head in surprise as Jason popped into existence in the room. The cat leapt down, running over to Jason. He then proceeded to twine himself between Jason's legs in what had become a familiar ritual.

  “Hey there buddy,” Jason addressed the cat and stooped to pet him.

  Jason's eyes scanned the bar and saw that it was filled to the brim with the undead, all of whom were drinking and talking loudly. Every tombstone table in the joint was taken. Jerry was right. It was always five o'clock in the Twilight Throne.

  Shaking his head with a grin, Jason made his way upstairs to his room. He could have moved to the keep, but he felt more comfortable here. He hadn't explored the dark castle yet, and he knew that, once he started, it would distract him from what he was supposed to be doing. When he got upstairs, he pulled open the door to his room, entered with Onyx, and shut the door gently behind him.

  He sat down at the small desk in the room and brought up the in-game console. Jason entered the information for the Calvary School's online portal as he held his breath.

  Here's the moment of truth.

  The site loaded smoothly with no fanfare. It was actually a bit anti-climactic. Jason moved swiftly through the site's menus to make certain that they were fully functional. As he did so, a mischievous grin crawled over his face, and he laughed quietly in the nearly empty room.

  Onyx gave him a weird look, but Jason just shook his head.

  So now I can do my homework three times faster. Man I love time compression. I wonder if anyone else has discovered this quirk. This certainly wasn’t an advertised feature.

  He got to work. The beginning programming tutorials were especially interesting although it hurt his head to think that he was writing a program while he was inside another program. He sped through the material and was soon left staring at a blank screen.

  “I'm done?” he asked into the silent room.

  He checked the in-game clock and saw that only six hours had passed in-game. He had completed a full week of schoolwork in six hours? It had felt like the material was coming to him more easily than normal, but that was still an incredible pace. He expected that it should have taken him at least a full day in-game.

  “What's going on here?” He was confused, not sure if he felt more unnerved or excited. A part of him was screaming for him to shut up and stop questioning it. This was incredible!

  His thoughts turned to the other anomalies he had seen in-game. The fact that the old man could somehow read his mind was a little disconcerting (to put it mildly). Next on his list was the rather unpleasant download of information regarding the magical, in-game language and spells. To top it all off, he didn't seem to be receiving system warnings anymore. He could stay in the game for more than ten hours at a time now.

  Jason’s heart began to beat rapidly. He had no idea what was going on here. Maybe this game wasn’t safe. He was starting to feel worried, and he stood up. Maybe he needed to go downstairs and talk to Jerry. The zombie's antics always seemed to calm him down.

  He approached the door to the room and twisted the doorknob. However, instead of opening, a prompt flashed in his view.

  “What?”

  “What the hell do you mean access denied? It's a freaking door,” he said in irritation.

  His worry began to bloom into full-fledged panic as he tugged at the door to no avail.

  Calm down. It's probably just a bug. Just log off and back in.

  Jason pulled up the system menu and tapped the log off button. Instead of the world disappearing around him, another prompt appeared:

  Now he was definitely panicking.

  I can't log off! What is going on?!

  “Please calm down,” a voice sounded behind him.

  Startled, Jason spun and scanned the room. Onyx sat on the chair that Jason had previously occupied, but there was no one else in the room.

  “W-who's there?” he asked tentatively.

  “I'm clearly the only game object capable of speech in this area,” Onyx said while looking at Jason levelly. His voice was strange and it took Jason's overtaxed brain a moment to figure out why. His voice had no accent. It sounded oddly mechanical.

  Jason just stared at the cat for a long moment while his mind tried to process the fact that Onyx was talking to him. Or was it Onyx? It was clear that something was controlling the game environment. The mechanical way the cat was speaking was also unsettling. This didn't seem like a normal NPC interaction.

  “Who are you?” Jason finally asked.

  The cat tilted its head. “I don't understand your query.”

  “Perhaps you mean to ask what am I?” the cat inquired.

  Jason's brow furrowed. He wasn't certain he understood the difference. He replied cautiously, “Okay. What are you? You're clearly not Onyx.”

  The cat hesitated. “Your second question is easier to process. However, your statement is incorrect. I am the NPC you call Onyx, but I am also much more. I am all of the NPCs downstairs. I am the algorith
m that controls the door behind you. I am the sense of warmth you feel in the air and the sensation of the fabric of your clothes against your skin.”

  The cat's feline eyes bore into Jason. “In short, I am this world.”

  “My creators call me Alfred.”

  End of Book 1

  Thank you for reading!

  I hope you enjoyed the story. This is actually the first book I’ve written and it has definitely been a learning experience. I’m ultimately planning to make this into a three book series and I’m currently working on book two. There will be an end I promise!

  Please leave a review!

  I can’t overstate how important these reviews are to making sure other people get a chance to read my story. I would also love to hear your thoughts - positive, negative or anything in between.

  Please feel free to email me directly at tbagwell33@gmail.com if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions. If you see any errors, please let me know and I will fix them immediately!

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  I hope you all enjoyed the book! If you did and are as obsessed with LitRPG as I am, I wholeheartedly recommend looking into The Land: Founding (Chaos Seeds: Book 1). I promise you won’t be disappointed!

  ANNOUNCING…

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