Call of Carrethen: A LitRPG and GameLit novel (Wellspring Book 1)

by Stephen Roark

  He fired again, another Lightning Bolt, but D saw it coming and dodged it easily. He fired back, striking Jerick in the head and dealing a Critical Blow.

  As he closed in, D switched from his bow to a set of double daggers. It was his secondary skill used for close range. Jerick tried to cast another spell, but D unleashed on him with a flurry of attacks, decimating his remaining health.

  “Ah!” Jerick shouted. “No!”

  But it was too late. Jerick’s HP vanished, and his body collapsed onto the ground.

  “Oooooh, yeah!” D cried out in victory, brandishing his daggers in front of him like a ninja. “Mess with the best—die like the rest!”

  D had “gone Red” as he did in every game, meaning he was now a Player Killer and was able to attack and be attacked by any other player who had also gone Red. I was still “white,” which is why Jerick’s spell hadn’t affected me.

  “Wow, a level 8,” I remarked.

  “Levels mean nothing!” he roared, puffing out his chest. “The skill is everything!”

  I heard the sound of someone portaling in behind me and turned to see a cluster of purple dots in the shape of a character respawning at the Bindestone. The shape solidified, and I saw Jerick, completely naked. Well almost naked. He was wearing a loincloth, the only item in the game that you couldn’t remove from your character.

  “Wait, wait, wait!” he shouted at D, who was busy looting Jerick’s fallen body.

  “Sorry, buddy.” D chuckled. “To the victor goes the spoils.”

  “I dropped my robe!” he whined as D got to his feet and turned around. When he saw Jerick, standing there half-naked, he burst out laughing.

  I could see the anger in Jerick’s eyes, but he couldn’t do anything about it. After a death in PvP, the game made you White again and you couldn’t PvP for ten minutes. It was mostly to prevent people from being spawn camped at their Bindstones.

  “Werren Mage Robe,” D mused, equipping Jerick’s robe just to rub it in. I held my hand over my lips to stifle a laugh. Jerick turned and glared at me.

  “Sorry.” I chuckled.

  “Come on, man,” he pleaded. “Give it back. You’re an archer, you don’t need it!”

  “Hey, man. You went Red. You knew the consequences.”

  “Yeah, but…” Jerick stammered. D was right, but that didn’t make his defeat any less sour.

  “All right, all right,” D replied, giving in. “But just this once.”

  He stepped up to Jerick, unequipped the robe and handed it over to him.

  “Thank you so much!”

  “I’m keeping your Pareals and this wand you tried to kill me with,” D replied. “And make sure you tell all your friends to look out for Darien. They won’t be so lucky.”

  Jerick nodded as he reequipped the robe. Suddenly, his whole demeanor changed, and his eyes narrowed. “Until next time!”

  And with that, he turned and ran.

  “I knew it,” D scoffed, slamming a fist against his thigh. “See what happens when you’re nice to ‘em? I shoulda kept it. When are you gonna go Red and help me out?”

  “A level 5 Horngrin just killed me, D.” I laughed. “You really think I’d be much help right now?”

  “Good point,” he replied. “Come on. Let’s head back out and get you some more experience.”

  3

  No GM Event

  The world North of Stoneburg was like Northern New England, but with enormous trees, at least fifty feet tall, the first half of their trunks bare.

  The grass was green, speckled with rocks and boulders. Birds chirped and flew above us, and insects buzzed by my face. As we continued back to the Horngrin camp where we’d been hunting, I found myself having to remind myself that it was all a game.

  “It’s so strange that none of this is real,” I said out loud, kicking a rotted stump, feeling the wood crunch realistically under my boot and hearing the sound of the fiber snapping.

  “What is real?” D asked me, a sly look on his face. “How do you define real? If real is what you can feel, smell, taste, and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”

  “You and your movie quotes, man.” I laughed. “How many do you watch a day?”

  “Nah, I don’t watch that many,” D replied. “I just have a really good auditory memory. I hear something, and it just sticks.”

  “They’re all so old too!”

  “Star Wars? The Matrix?” D replied, aghast. “Those are classics, dude!”

  “Oh, yeah?” I grinned. “What’s this from? A dream within a dream—”

  “Inception,” D replied instantly. “Easy.”

  “Bah, whatever,” I replied. “Only in this game, when you die, you don’t wake up.”

  “You just wake up at a Bindstone and pray you didn’t drop your armor and end up half naked in a loincloth!”

  We both laughed as we came back upon our leveling spot. I saw my corpse lying on the ground in front of me. It was sort of spooky, seeing my lifeless body, even if it didn’t really look like me.

  Like all games, Call of Carrethen let you design the way your character would look, and I’d gone with an optimistic view of myself—how I liked to think I’d look after two years in the gym.

  I was tall, somewhere over six feet, muscled with broad shoulders, and a chiseled jaw. I never understood why the game gave you the option of being short and fat, but some people liked it I guess—especially the trolls who liked to strip down to nothing but their loincloth and run around town screaming memes at each other.

  D, on the other hand, was slightly shorter, lankier and a little more rugged looking, like a bandit or a ravager—someone you didn’t want to mess with. Which he really kind of was.

  I reached my corpse and it instantly vanished. I was too low level to have dropped any loot, so there was really no reason for it to stay.

  “Weird,” I said, eyeing the now empty ground below me. A tiny salamander-like creature slithered through the grass and I marveled at the game’s attention to detail.

  “Yeah, yeah,” D said impatiently. “Come on. Let’s get back to it.”

  He nocked an arrow and fired at one of the Horngrins that was wandering off on its own, away from the rest of the other three that were clustered together in a pack. It howled, turned, and charged. D stepped behind me.

  “All yours.”

  “Okay,” I said calmly, drawing my sword. “Let the Force flow through me.”

  “That’s right!”

  It was another level 5, just like the one that had killed me. With a snarl, it leapt at me with an opening attack, swinging a chipped axe at my head. I ducked and replied with a cross strike across its chest. It actually hit, dealing a decent amount of damage.

  “Ha! I got him!”

  “That’s great, kid. Don’t get cocky.”

  The Horngrin snarled, showing its hideous yellow teeth as it charged, aiming the two brown horns on its skull right at my chest. I tried my best to get out of the way, but he hit me hard and knocked me back, stunning me briefly.

  Being stunned in games is always annoying, but in a virtual world, the effect was ten times worse.

  Thankfully, the Horngrin wasn’t that quick and the stun debuff wore off before his next attack, which I blocked easily. I stabbed out, feeling more confident with my sword, and this time, the strike hit him, chipping away more HP.

  “Nice! That’s it!” D roared with approval from behind me. “Now finish him off!”

  “Finish him!?” I gasped. The Horngrin was still at half health!

  “Use your skills!” D reminded me.

  My skills! Of course! I’d been so preoccupied with learning how to actually get my virtual body to do what I wanted it to, and aiming my attacks, that I’d forgotten my skills.

  Quickly, I activated Warrior’s Charge. It was meant to be an opening attack but could be used at close range. I felt a blast of power in my legs and kicked off the ground as the game assisted
me, propelling me forward at twice my normal speed. My shoulder slammed into the Horngrin and knocked him back.

  This time he was the stunned one.

  “Broad Strike!” D shouted behind me like a soccer coach.

  I activated the skill, slashing out viciously across the Horngrin’s chest, knocking off a massive amount of his health. He was still stunned, and I brought my sword up, down, and across again for three more hits.

  Yes!

  The Horngrin’s HP was low. In fact, it was critical.

  “Finish him!” D yelled.

  Without hesitation, I activated Execute, a skill only available for use when an enemy was below ten percent health. My sword chirped a satisfying slicing sound and sparkled briefly as I swung. The blade connected and the Horngrin’s remaining health was gone.

  With a final death rattle, the beast died in a puff of flame and smoke.

  “Very good, grasshopper.” D applauded behind me as I turned to face him, feeling as though I’d just accomplished a major victory, when in fact, all I’d done was kill a low level monster.

  “Easy,” I bragged, spinning my sword in front of me.

  “Yeah?” D asked, aiming his bow at the main Horngrin camp. “Let’s step it up a level.”

  “Wait!”

  But D didn’t hesitate. He fired his arrow straight into the group, striking one of the Horngrin in the back. It reared around and screamed, getting the entire group’s attention. All three of them charged us.

  “Are you nuts!?” I shouted, stepping back.

  “You’ll be fine.” He laughed. “If not, just run!”

  The group raced towards us, weapons held high. D loosed an arrow, picking away at the one in the lead. It screamed, raising its chipped, rusty sword high above its head. I brought my sword up to block the blow, but then—something happened.

  The Horngrin stopped.

  No. The Horngrin froze, like time itself had stopped. The other two Horngrin behind it froze as well, their faces contorted in their snarling rage, their weapons ready to strike. Even D’s arrow hung motionless in the air between us.

  I turned and looked at D for an explanation, but he looked just as clueless as me. It was as though somehow the entire game has frozen. A bug in the hardware?

  “What the Hell?” I asked. “Server crash or something?”

  “Nah,” D replied. “We’d be booted back to reality if that had happened…”

  It was then that I noticed everything was silent. The birds had stopped chirping. There was no sound of insects or the breeze. It was as though we were standing in a completely unfinished model of the game that had yet to be turned on.

  I opened my mouth to speak again, but suddenly, the sound of rushing water filled my ears as I was pulled into portal space.

  “Jack!” I heard D shout as I was pulled away, teleported to somewhere unknown.

  The purple-blue portal twisted and turned at high speed as I was pulled through it to an unknown destination.

  I was being teleported somewhere. But how? By who? Some sort of admin? Someone in control of the game? Only someone with those kind of powers could teleport another player in the game world. Maybe it was one of those in-game events that GMs would sometimes stage.

  But I had no time to think. The portal began to peel apart, and I felt a tugging sensation at my feet. Looking down, I saw dark purple stone, and as my boots hit the ground, the remaining walls of the portal stripped away like a thousand threads being pulled, and I found myself standing in the center of an enormous crowd of people.

  The sound of their voices was deafening. Everyone was shouting questions to each other, trying to figure out what was going on.

  “What the Hell?” Someone laughed. “Aye, Kugen! What’s going on?”

  “I dunno, Kodiak!”

  “It’s a GM event!” Someone suggested, obviously having the same idea as me. “Oh, this is gonna be epic!”

  “Nah, it’s a bug!” Someone countered. “Didn’t you see how the game lagged out?”

  The entire server population had to be around us. I looked around, trying to get a sense of where we were. But all I could see were more people.

  “This is no GM event,” D whispered beside me. “And this is not good.”

  “I agree.”

  We were on some kind of plateau. There was nothing on the horizon in any direction. No trees, no mountaintops, nothing. The only thing in sight were more players. It felt like an unfinished part of the game, or a place players weren’t supposed to ever go.

  “Welcome to Carrethen,” a voice boomed like thunder from all around us. Everyone looked around, but it seemed as though the voice had come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

  “What was that?”

  “See?” someone shouted. “It’s a GM event! I told you!”

  Lightning snapped above us, followed by the deafening sound of thunder. I looked up as the sky darkened and the clouds began to swirl together.

  Then, a deafening crack, like the earth shattering beneath us. The entire plateau shook as a thick column emerged from the ground at the center of the crowd, rising into the air. And on top of it, stood a figure.

  “Is that…?”

  The column kept rising and rising until it was hundreds of feet above us, the figure barely visible. I squinted up for a better view, when suddenly the figure itself grew. It expanded, faster and faster until it loomed above us all—a black knight, clad in demonic black plate mail with a horned helm. His face was hidden, everything but the eyes and mouth.

  “Whoa, cool!” someone whispered beside me. Obviously, he was on board with the GM event theory, but I was already looking around for a way to escape. But with all the bodies around me, it just didn’t seem possible. Whatever this was, it wasn’t good.

  “I am God,” the voice boomed.

  A few people cheered, but the rest of the crowd was starting to get nervous

  “But you may call me The Ripper.”

  “Hey, Ripper!” someone called out, waving to the face in the sky.

  “Silence!” the voice boomed, shaking the ground beneath us. Thousands of players cried out as they tumbled over, thrown back by the sheer power of the voice.

  “Let’s get the Hell out of here!” D tugged at my arm and we began to move through the crowd, trying to find an escape route. The face behind the horned helm was strange, like an optical illusion. No matter where we moved, it was always looking at us, straight on, like it was impossible to escape his gaze.

  “Welcome to Carrethen. I have taken control of this world. As of now, your lives belong to me.”

  “Yep,” D whispered as we pushed through the crowd. “Bad news.”

  4

  The Ripper

  The sea of players moved around us as a single organism, pushing and pulling like a mob at a concert. Hushed voices and whispers filled the air around us as we all stared up at the monstrous face smiling devilishly down upon us.

  “As I said. My name is The Ripper. I am now your ruler, and as such, I will explain a few things to you. First, you will see that you are no longer able to log out of this world.”

  “Bull!” someone shouted from beside me.

  “Try it,” The Ripper countered calmly. “Go ahead.”

  I turned to see a mage scrolling through his interface to the log out button. He pressed it, and I watched as his body began to dissolve into an infinite number of small purple dots. Next, he would be pulled away into portal space and back into the real world. But seconds later, his body reformed, and he found himself standing in the same place he was before.

  Someone shouted in fear, and the whole crowd erupted in panic.

  Quickly, I pulled up my in-game interface and scrolled down to the log out button. With two fingers, I pressed it, and instantly was whisked away into portal space.

  Come on, come on, come on! I begged as the portal twisted around me. The familiar sound of rushing water coursed through my ears, but just when I expected to feel
the soft padding of my bed at home, I felt hard stone under my feet and looked down to find myself back on the plateau surrounded by players.

  “I can’t log out!” someone screamed.

  “I can’t either!”

  “We’re stuck here!”

  Players dematerialized and rematerialized all around me. It had to be a joke. Some sick and twisted game being played on the server population by the game’s staff. It couldn’t be possible!

  “Silence!” The Ripper’s voice boomed again. It was so loud half of the crowd actually jumped and stared back at the sky. “It’s no use trying. No matter how many times you try, the result will be the same. You are stuck here. Carrethen is now your home.”

  “D,” I hissed. “Do you know this guy?”

  D had been a Beta player and mentioned knowing a few of the developers from the message boards, but he slowly shook his head.

  “No…”

  “The developers of this game were fools,” The Ripper said with an evil smile. “Their weakness has allowed me to take over. I am in full control. No one is coming to save you.”

  “This can’t be happening…” I muttered.

  “You will be unable to leave until one of two conditions are met,” The Ripper continued. “The first condition, is that one of you defeats me. But as you may have already deduced, I am max level. One hundred and twenty-six. Some of you may be thinking that’s not too bad. The power levelers among you are thinking that you can just start grinding nonstop, and to an extent that is true, but as I said, I am in complete control here, and a couple things are going to change.”

  “Come on,” I told D. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good. We were packed in like sardines, but everyone was so stunned at what was going on, no one seemed to notice as D and I brushed past them.

  “First,” The Ripper continued. “From this moment on, if you die in Carrethen, you die in the real world.”

  That stopped both of us in our tracks. A hushed silence came over the crowd. Then, the whispers began.

  “What!?”

  “Is he serious!?”

  “It can’t be! That’s not possible!”

  “It is possible!” The Ripper’s voice roared. “Well, let me rephrase. You won’t die. Something arguably worse will happen to you. The Wellspring device projects your consciousness into this world. When you log out, your consciousness is returned to your body. But from now on, when you die in Carrethen, your consciousness will not return, but will be forever lost in the electronic void.”