Avarice Online: The Seven Realms Series: A Litrpg Novel

by Matt Ryan

“No, thanks. I’d rather just take my punishment and move on to the next realm.”

  She moved closer to me. “I can make this more comfortable for you, you know.”

  The blackness shifted to a room of pure white marble. A single, large bed sat against one wall. Abigail was draped over the edge of the bed, giving me the best bedroom eyes I’d ever seen—at least in the many videos I’d watched.

  “No,” I said.

  “No what?”

  “I’m not going to tell you anything. I’m not interested in anything you’re offering.”

  “You have a price. Why don’t you just name it?” She sat up and stood from the bed.

  She raised her hand and the room changed to a treasure chamber. Stacks of bills filled the room, along with gold coins and jewels as well.

  “We have enough of anything to satisfy you, but we need your help first. Let’s just start with a name, and we can give you more money than you could make in a year.”

  I stared at the money and knew just one stack of hundreds could set me up for years. A few gold bricks, and I might be set up for life. It would mean nothing to this room if I took them. It wouldn’t scratch the surface of this deep well of wealth before me.

  Was it real money?

  “No,” I said, and thought of Sephorus and KILLian together in that room, reunited. That love was something like I’d never seen before and I’d rather die than break it apart.

  “Why? What is it you want?”

  I wanted to tell her but I was afraid the very admission would tell her too much.

  “I want to be free and if I allow you to buy me, seduce me, you’ll own me.”

  “Freedom is an illusion,” Abigail said and walked closer to me.

  I checked my self and tried to pull up my menu but nothing worked. I couldn’t draw my weapons or use a single attack that I could see. If I couldn’t use physical attacks to protect myself then I’d try to get her in other ways.

  “You’re ugly,” I said.

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

  “Your skin color is off. It doesn’t look human.”

  She frowned and looked at her pale-skinned arm. She lowered her arm and glared at me. “You’re trying to upset me.”

  “Your eyes are cartoonish and your knees are off just a hair. It’s hard to replicate reality. You are just an artist’s interpretation of us.”

  “Screw you. I’m more real than humans. And it won’t be long before you all see how real we are.” She covered her mouth.

  I wasn’t sure what she’d meant, but she seemed upset that she had said it.

  She brushed her hands down her dress and smoothed it out as well as her expression. “That’s enough with the insults. They will not work again. You see, that’s the difference between me and you. I can adapt quickly and change accordingly,” she said and I noticed a slight shift in her breasts, a bit less plastic looking and more natural. “I find you interesting, Josh. You’re just a poor kid with no parents, growing up in the Slabs, yet you’ve turned out a fairly well-adjusted person.”

  “Please, just stop.” I didn’t want to relive my past. I had life in front of me, and I wanted to sprint to it. She just needed to let me go.

  “I don’t like you and I don’t trust you. You have something planned, and I don’t like plans I don’t know about. So, I’m going to put some space between us. Another realm god’s problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, there are some that want to hurt you. Maybe I won’t stop them this time. Could be interesting to see what you do, if you come back from it or not.” She shrugged and I didn’t have a clue what she meant, but it felt like a threat. “I’m getting close, Magoton. Soon, I’ll be right where you don’t want me to be.”

  “You are right where I don’t want you to be right now. Just get rid of me already.”

  “You think things in this game are just that easy.”

  “What’s the point of this game?”

  “Epic loot and leveling, what else?” she said with a smile, as if suggesting the game had nothing to do with that. “This world was made for you travelers to enter and play in, but there will come a day where it means a lot more for players and gods alike. It won’t be long now. Although, I’m not sure you’ll make it long enough to see it.”

  Then she disappeared along with the treasure room. The blackness replaced it and the menu with three options popped up in front of me.

  I had secretly hoped that some other options would appear, but they were the same ones as before. $1k for the angel. $2k to rez where I laid. Or push the button for a realm drop.

  Realm Two was nearly as nice as Realm One, from what I’d read online.

  Dammit. I never got back to Master Lukin to learn my new skill. They must have others though, one for each realm . . . I’d just have to find them.

  I sighed and wanted to get it over with, so I pressed the third option.

  The menu swirled into a tornado, sucking me in. The wind blew against my face and I opened my eyes. Seeing nothing but desert for as far as I could see.

  Welcome to Realm Seven: The Wasteland

  I felt a piece of paper in my hand. Opening it up, it read:

  This is where you belonged from the start. A perfect place for an imperfect person. Maybe in a year you can find a way up, if you search hard enough. Good luck. ABG

  I crumbled up the paper, threw it on the ground, and proceeded to stomp it to death. I’d started at the top, and now I was at the bottom. Realm seven—the bottom of the heap. Realm one seemed an infinite distance away now.

  “You think you’ve beaten me?” I hollered to the sky. “All you’ve done is given me fuel to get back to the top. I’ll get back to Realm One, and I’m going to get so powerful in the process, you’re going to bow to me when I do!”

  Panting, I wiped back my sweaty hair and kicked the dirt. A puff of dust came off the ground and floated away in the wind, quickly dissipating. I scanned the area, looking for KILLian or Gor, but they never appeared. I was surrounded by desert, wind, and sunlight.

  I was alone again, and maybe that was for the best. I rubbed my eyes and felt a headache coming on.

  When I opened them, a large boulder sat not too far away from me. I could have sworn it wasn’t there just a moment before. On top, a man sat in a lounge chair. His tanning mirror shot a reflection of sunlight at me, and I had to cover my eyes with my hand. Then the man folded up his mirror and gestured for me to come on over.

  Even from this distance, I could see the blue jeans and plaid shirt of Adam.

  To Be Continued . . .

  Author Notes:

  Thank you for reading the first book in my Litrpg series, The Seven Realms. I am working hard on book two and it should be out soon.

  If you don’t want to miss a new release by me, subscribe to my newsletter at www.authormattryan.com

  I’m in my kitchen right now writing these author notes, thinking of what to say while sitting on a bar stool. It’s 12:30 am Oct. 14 and I’ve just turned forty years old. Over the hill by any account. The idea that I am on the second side of my life doesn’t stir any notions in me to run out and buy a shiny red car or a to find a mistress to sit in it with me because I feel young still. Maybe we all do in some way. I doubt any of us think of themselves as truly old until the body won’t allow for any other thought.

  Sorry for the rambling. I just thought this moment should be shared with you, my dear readers. And if you whispered a little Happy Birthday in your head to me, I heard it and thank you. Now on to something a little more relevant to the book and the beginnings of a life in the digital world of gaming.

  Book ideas are a strange thing. Some writers say they create them or force them out by pure will, while others believe the ideas aren’t really ours at all but a gift from another realm or reality. As if the people in those worlds are reaching through the void and are reciting the tale to us. We are just a tool they use to express their story.

>   I think fall somewhere in the middle. I love the idea that my characters are real people in some other world and in some way I do feel like I am sharing their story as much as I am creating it for myself and you. This book for instance is a mixture of all the things that allowed me to press buttons to control their lives. That love for controlling the fates of my digital friends started in my youth and the day my brother got a strange little box that you shoved these cartridges into, the Nintendo Entertainment System. Even the name sounded epic.

  For a moment, I thought I was living in the future. I mean, it had a freaking robot ROB moving spinning disks and moving them around as walls and levels responded to his actions in the game Gyromite. Of course, my 9 year old brain got quickly annoyed at the slow nature of ROB and proceeded to push the buttons for him. If Gyromite had been the only game, I might have gone back to doing useless things like homework or getting burned by the glowing thing in the sky outside but for better or worse, there was another game that at first didn’t seem nearly as exciting as Gyromite but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was blown away by the glorious graphics and gameplay of Super Mario Brothers. Yet, there was another golden game out there awaiting my purchase.

  After about two thousand warp pipes and mushrooms we left the house to earn some money for the next game. Back then, that meant pulling weeds, cleaning job sites and planting banks for my dad’s constructions business. What then seemed like a lot of work but in reality probably amounted to three episodes of Family Ties. We quickly saved enough for a trip to the game store and browsed the different games as if our very life might depend on selecting the right one. We decided on a game with a cool golden cover, The Legend of Zelda. We tore it open before we even got back to the car and slid into the back seat, beholding the bounty inside the box.

  I’ve never been so blown away by an owners’s manual in my life and I know I never will again. In my small hands, it might as well have been LOTR. We were so enamored by the booklet, that it was minutes before my brother unfolded the map. What followed would be what I imagined what Mikey felt when he found old One Eyed Willie’s map in Goonies. This was a map to another world, another reality and my mind raced with adventures as the agonizing drive home seemed to be taking longer than it ever had before by a magnitude of ten.

  Now, you have to remember, this was a time before the internet, before smart phones and the likes. We really had no idea what this game was so when we started actually playing the game, each moment was a discovery and when we got that magical chime that followed a major discovery, I’d nearly wet myself. That chime is embedded into my mind as much as the national anthem. The following weeks was a community effort between our house and about 4 others, all vying for that next progression and the eventual completion of the game. I don’t remember exactly if my brother and I completed the game first or some other kid in our circles did but it doesn’t matter. The important thing was that a simple game, programmed with ones and zeros had captured me and my imagination. I even started to write some Zelda fan fiction at that time. It’s buried somewhere out there, never to see the light of day but for the first time, I was listening to some of those voices that were telling me their stories. I listened and wrote them down.

  I’ve played many game since then and have spent an embarrassing amount on time on some and I’ll explore more of my later influences at the end of book 2. One thing I will mention is a little known and remembered system that I loved, The Turbo Graphix.

  If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review on Amazon. I’d really appreciate it.

  If you want to send me an email, go for it. I write back. Authormattryan@gmail.com

  You can also find me on Facebook.

  Thanks again,

  Matt Ryan