Veil Online - Book 1 (a LitRPG MMORPG Adventure Series)

by John Cressman

  “Jace!” came her faint voice and he looked around for her. His ears were just not sharp enough to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. But he did know someone with very sharp ears. He looked down at Luna. “Find her! Find Charlena!”

  Luna's ears twitched for a moment and then she streaked off to the south, forcing Jace to run in order to keep up with her. They ran through the village, dodging between buildings before they finally broke into the open and onto the southern road.

  He immediately saw Charlena lying on her stomach in the middle of the road. He couldn’t tell if she was dead or not and poured on the speed.

  Reaching her body, he turned her over. She was alive but she wasn’t speaking. Jace realized what had happened. She must have ran all the way back and used up all of her Stamina. She’d be fine once she regenerated some.

  “It’s okay,” he told her. “Sorry I was there. I’ll explain it to you when you can move.”

  She shook her head slightly and he thought he heard her say something. He bent over her and lowered his ear to her mouth to try and make out what she was saying.

  “You… you’re alive,” she rasped.

  Jace sat up and smiled down at her. “Yes, I’m alive. The goblins killed me, but I respawned.”

  Charlena shook her head again, a little stronger this time. She reached up with her hand and pulled him back down. “No… I think… you’re alive… “She gasped, straining to get the last words out. “... in the real world.”

  Chapter 33

  Jace sat up quickly. He didn’t think he had understood her correctly, but his heart still did a flip flop. She thought he was alive? That wasn’t possible. He had to be dead. Didn’t he?

  His heart was racing but he tried to think of things logically. He’d be in the game for days without logging out. He would have had to eat and drink in that time, not to mention taking care of other bodily functions. Even if he wouldn’t have dehydrated by now, he hadn’t slept the entire time he’d been in the game. It didn’t make any sense. There was no way he could be in a pod. He must have misunderstood her.

  As he waited for her to recover from Stamina depletion, a thought occurred to him. She said he had been in an accident. A car accident. What if he was in a coma? He could be in a long term medical pod. That would explain how he could survive this long. Jace had only read a little about them but if he remembered correctly, a person could be in one for months.

  But if he was in a coma, inside a medical pod, why wasn’t he sleeping? Could that be it? Was he still alive in the real world, inside a medical pod that was keeping his brain stimulated? It was too much for him to process.

  “I think you might be alive,” Charlena said as she climbed to her knees. She’d recovered from the Stamina depletion and had regenerated enough that she could sit up.

  Jace just stared at her. “How? Are you sure?”

  Charlena shook her head and took Jace’s hand. “I don’t know for certain. But remember when I told you I did a little search for your name when you first told me your story?”

  He nodded numbly. “Yeah, that’s when you told me about the car accident.”

  “Right,” she said. “I don’t remember if I told you, but that was the only thing I could find on you.”

  “Did you find more?”

  “No,” Charlena said and must have seen Jace’s puzzled look. “No. I didn’t find anything else. That’s the whole point. I kept an automated search on your name so I could see if there was a funeral or anything.”

  Jace still didn’t know where she was going and it must have shown on his face.

  “It’s been over a month since the accident,” she explained. “I went back and looked at the search results when I got home from class. There’s still nothing.”

  Jace felt a little depressed at that. He’d died and there had been nothing about him, other than some brief mention on an accident report. It was as if he had never existed. He was an average Joe. He died and no one noticed. The world went on. “Well, it’s not like I was a celebrity.”

  “No,” she shook her head, tightening her grip on his hand. “You don’t get it. I was searching everything. Public records, the internet, everything. There was no obituary. And there was no certificate of death.”

  That hit Jace like a ten ton hammer. Could it be? Was it really possible that he was alive?

  If so, that meant he was probably in some sort of coma and his body must be in very bad shape. Why else would he still be in a coma? He could still die.

  “That’s good news,” he said, though he was too numb to convey any real emotion.

  Charlena gave him an incredulous look. “Good news?! That’s great news! You’re still alive!”

  Jace held a hand up. He wanted to believe that. He wanted to believe that he was alive and that he'd recover. Thinking that he was dead for all this time really made him realize how precious his life really was. He would love a second chance at it. But he needed to be sure before he got his hopes up.

  “I need to be sure,” Jace told her. “I need to have some sort of proof before I can accept it.”

  Giving him a sympathetic look, Charlena nodded. “I understand. If you are alive, we need to find your body!”

  “Yes,” he told her. “If I am alive, I’m probably in a coma, in one of the long term medical pods.”

  “A coma?” she asked and seemed to take a minute to absorb that. “Why do you think that?”

  “I haven’t logged out, slept, eaten or drank anything for days by my reckoning. I think I would have either died of dehydration or something before now. A long term medical pod could take care of all of my bodily functions: feed me intravenously, etc.”

  “But why do you think you’re in a coma?”

  “Because I haven’t slept. It wouldn’t make any sense for them to keep me immersed if I was well enough to wake up. So, I must be in a coma.”

  Charlena looked saddened by his explanation but after a moment, she nodded. “I guess that makes sense.”

  “This may make finding me easier,” he told her. “How many hospitals would have a coma patient in a long term pod?”

  “That’s right!” Charlena said excitedly. “I should be able to call up the hospitals and find out if they have long term pods and if so, do they have a car accident victim in a coma in one of them.”

  “That might work,” Jace told her. He remembered WorldCog and how he had thought they had killed him. That was still a possibility. They could have tried and failed. If so, they may still be after him. “Charlena, be careful. If WorldCog did try to have me killed, I don’t want you getting on their radar.”

  “You still think they tried to have you killed?” Charlena asked him. “I mean, it’s possible you were just hit by a car and then ended up in a coma.”

  Jace shook his head. “Except for the fact that I ended up in a monster body.”

  “Oh,” Charlena scrunched up her face. “I forgot about that. You’re right. Just ending up in a medical pod wouldn’t explain that. Except, what if it’s a problem with the medical pod and not the game?”

  Once again, Jace shook his head. “That doesn’t explain the other players I found in monster bodies.”

  Charlena’s face went sober. “That’s right. Like Diana Stewart.”

  “Like Diana Stewart and Duglas,” Jace agreed. “And that goblin chieftain.”

  Charlena’s shot up. “Goblin chieftain?”

  Jace smiled sadly. “I got captured by the goblins after you left last night. They took me to their leader, who called himself ‘the Big Cheese’.” He remembered the person’s ravings. “He’d gone insane from being in here so long and being a monster.”

  “He was crazy?” Charlena asked. “Are you sure?”

  Jace nodded empathetically. “Oh yeah. He was ranting about being killed over and over by players and kept talking about himself in plural form.”

  Charlena made a face. “Poor guy or girl. It’s frightening to think that could be happening t
o others.”

  Jace agreed but remembered something else. “And I think there must be some sort of residual code from me being a monster.”

  “You mean the fact that you can talk to monsters?”

  “Something more. I can sense other players inside monsters. I actually feel drawn to them,” he told her.

  She considered that for a moment. “I’m not sure if I understand. Aren’t you a regular player now?”

  “Not really completely normal,” Jace told her. “I wonder if the way I turned myself into a player didn’t completely change me. It could have made me a hybrid. I may have code from both entity types.”

  “I don’t know if I understand,” Charlena told him.

  Jace shrugged. “I don’t know if I understand either. What I did shouldn’t be possible. It’s a situation the original developers never anticipated: A player who is a monster and happens to know how to code and knows something about the game, doing an injection attack to change his entity type.”

  Charlena ran her hand over her head. “Most of what you said went right over my head.”

  Jace laughed. “Sorry. But let’s just say, the developers never meant for a hybrid like me to exist, so there’s no telling what side-effects may occur. Me sensing other players in monsters could be one of those side-effects.”

  A dark look crossed Charlena’s beautiful elven features. “Wait. If you can sense them, do you think they can sense you?”

  Jace considered that. “It’s possible. I didn’t ask Duglas or Diana and I don’t think Big Cheese was lucent enough to understand and even if he did, I don’t think I could have trusted his answer.”

  “So, what now?” Charlena asked. “Want me to log out and start calling hospitals?”

  Jace considered for a moment. It would be nice to have confirmation that he was actually alive. But at the same time, if she started calling every hospital in Philadelphia, it might set off some red flags. “No, wait until tomorrow and then call one or two.”

  She gave him a confused expression.

  “I don’t want you to set off any red flags,” he told her. “If WorldCog did try to kill me, we don’t want to alert them to the fact that they didn’t succeed. I think I’m better off if they think I’m dead.”

  Charlena nodded. “That makes sense. I’ll try to be discrete. I’ll start with the ones around where the accident occurred. I think the address is in the accident report.”

  “That sounds like a plan.”

  “So then,” she looked around. “Do you just want to keep playing like nothing happened.”

  He smiled. “I guess so.” He remembered the news about the caravan, and it must shown on his face.

  “What?” asked Charlena.

  “I found out from Absalom today that the caravan was here right before we arrived,” he told her. “It won’t be back for nearly 2 months.”

  “TWO MONTHS?!” Charlena exclaimed. “That little piece of --”

  The colorful language she used to describe the mage who had brought her here could have made a sailor blush. Jace was pretty sure he was blushing.

  “I can’t believe that idiot would just dump me here to wait for 2 months!” Charlena fumed. “And I can’t believe WorldCog wouldn’t do anything about it! If we find out WorldCog was behind trying to kill you, I will personally help you burn their headquarters to the ground!”

  Jace nodded but didn’t interrupt her tirade. He was afraid that if he did, she might redirect some of that ire onto him. And he had enough things to keep his mind occupied right now.

  When she’d gotten her ranting out of her system, she turned back to Jace. “So then what do we do? Wait here?”

  “That’s one possibility,” he told her. “The other is, we try to make it to the next town on our own.”

  “On our own?” Charlena asked disbelievingly.

  “It’s possible,” he told her. “If we could make it to a different town, closer to the capital, we might catch an earlier caravan.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous, especially if we can only move when I’m logged in?” she asked.

  “Actually,” Jace began. “We could be moving 24 hours a day. If you auto-follow me.”

  “Auto-follow you?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

  “It’s how you attach yourself to a caravan or ship. You auto-follow the captain or caravan leader and you will basically go where they go,” Jace explained. “You can also auto-follow another player.”

  “How does that work? I stay logged in?” she asked.

  “Basically, when you log out, your character will keep following me,” he told her. “It’s very robotic and unnatural looking but it does work. Players do it, but usually with people they really trust. So we could do it, if you trust me.” He raised an eyebrow at her.

  Charlena looked right into his eyes and took his hand. “I trust you with my life. Well, maybe my character’s life.”

  He wanted to laugh but her eyes held him. So caught up in her eyes was he that he was surprised when her lips found his.

  Chapter 34

  Her lips were warm and sweet and Jace had just begun to kiss her back when she pulled away suddenly.

  “Darn it!” she said, taking a step back.

  Jace looked at her in confusion. He knew it had been a long time since he kissed a girl, but he didn’t remember being that bad.

  She seemed to notice his look and her expression turned apologetic. “I forgot to turn up the sensory level. No offense, but it was sort of like kissing you through a few layers of cellophane.”

  Jace gave her a mischievous smile. “You can dial your sensory feedback up to maximum and we can try that again.”

  “Oh really?” she asked, her eyes glinting with mischief too. “Maybe I’ll do just that.”

  Her eyes went glassy for a moment and Jace stepped in and kissed her. This time she didn’t pull away and a little moan escaped her. When they finally broke away, they were both breathless.

  Jace had been attracted to her from the start, but his predicament had taken up most of his thoughts. And the news of him possibly being alive had really thrown him for an emotional loop. But he genuinely liked Charlena. He’d always been so focused on his career and building up his “retirement” with Mordred, he’d barely had time for relationships. Now it seemed he had inadvertently found one.

  He really liked Charlena. She was intelligent, funny and best of all, she seemed to like the old vids that he did. If he was alive and he did recover, would their relationship spill over into the real world? Would they like each other once they met the real versions? Jace decided to think about it later. Right now, he’d just enjoy whatever it was they did have.

  “Better that time?” he asked playfully.

  Catching her breath, Charlena gave him a broad smile. “Much better!”

  They both laughed for a moment but then Charlena turned serious. “I trust you Jace. I will definitely auto-follow you. But do you really think we can make it to the next town? Do you even know what the next town is?”

  Jace shook his head. “I didn’t ask. The two months until the next caravan thing kind of threw me for a loop.”

  “Me too,” she nodded. “It’s hard to believe this is a starter town when it’s that far away from the capital.”

  “When the game first started, people ended up all over the place. It was completely random.,” he told her. “There were tons of complaints because it took so long for friends or family to find each other in the game - if they ever did.”

  “God forbid any of them ended up out here,” Charlena chimed in.

  “They did,” Jace assured her. “And other equally far away places. Remember, back then, you could only be human so they had lots of human villages scattered across the world so that the starter areas wouldn’t be overcrowded. But they had so many complaints that they did that big update and introduced the other races as ‘premium’ races and introduced new starter cities - all near the capitals.”

  “Total money
grab!” Charlena said bitterly.

  “At the time,” Jace agreed. “But now when you sign up, you get three free premium options.”

  Charlena nodded. “True, I got three. I tried a gnome but I didn’t like it so I deleted it and created this elf.”

  Jace stared at her for a long moment, trying to picture her as a gnome. Gnomes and halflings had very youthful looks to them. Combined with their small stature, they almost resemble children. It almost seemed a bit creepy to have a relationship with someone who looked like a child, even though they could be 50 years old in real life.

  “What?” asked Charlena, who must have noticed his odd stare.

  “Just imagining you as a gnome,” Jace said, blushing slightly.

  “I’ll have you know I was a really cute gnome,” she told him with mock indignation. “But they make better wizards and I just didn’t like the magic.”

  “Me either,” Jace said. He remembered how he’d set the goblin huts aflame. “But it does have its uses.”

  “Oh shoot,” he said as he remembered the goblin camp. He’d forgotten about it. What were they up to now? Were they planning an attack on Sinking Springs? Even if he was leaving, he didn’t want Sinking Springs to get wiped out because of something he did.

  “What?!” Charlena asked, suddenly alert.

  “The goblin camp,” he said. “I kind of set it on fire last night after they killed me. They might be planning an attack on the village to get revenge. We should go check on it.”

  Relaxing, Charlena shook her head. “They’re gone. I logged in near them and thought you might be scouting them out, so I went to find you. The whole place is deserted.”

  “Deserted?” he asked in disbelief.

  “They’re all gone. Most of the huts have been burnt to the ground,” she told him. “When I saw that, I figured you were back in the village and ran back here to tell you the news.”

  “And ran yourself completely out of stamina,” he chided.

  “Yes,” she said, remembering. “That’s never happened. I just collapsed. I couldn’t do anything. It was scary.”