by M B Reid
Contents
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
Backmatter
To Kat, for supporting me with all of my obsessions.
CHAPTER ONE
I was running late.
Literally, running. Sweat poured down my face as I struggled for breath. I’d messed up, and Logan was not going to let me live it down. His text ran through my head, one simple word “ready?”. Of course I’d replied to say I’d be on in five. Obviously I was still at least a ten minute run from my house. Just my luck.
This whole exercise thing was not working out for me. I’d never really done new years resolutions before, but getting into better shape seemed like a pretty good idea. How hard could it possibly be to go for a run three times a week and maybe eat a little less junk food.
As it turns out, it’s really damn hard.
We were rushing to get into the new release of Liorel Online. The first expansion was going live today, in exactly three minutes, and we were planning to play through as much as we could together. Neither of us had played the game before, even though it’d been out for almost a year.
Logan and his girlfriend had a six month old daughter, so the last year of his life had been insanely hectic. Me, well I wasn’t exactly following the romance path in life, I’d moved half-way across the country to take a software development job. The hours were good, the pay was excellent, and the social life sucked.
I’d always thought moving somewhere new would be kind of cool. You could reinvent yourself to be anyone. No-one would know how awkward you were as a teenager, or remember that horrific goth phase. Unfortunately I’d reinvented myself as a social outcast. I worked in a small office with a bunch of older guys, all of whom had children and wives to go home to each night. And I didn’t have any real world hobbies. My interests basically centred around computers, which had worked out well for my career but that was about all.
Now though, we were geared up for a weekend long binge of Liorel. Logan’s girlfriend had gone to visit her parents, and taken their daughter with her. As usual I had nothing better planned. That’s how we’d hatched this plan.
But now I was messing things up.
It wasn’t even a good day for running. The sun was baking everything in sight and the air was as still as the grave. I could have sworn I was on the verge of heat exhaustion. Still, the rest of my weekend was going to be spent playing the worlds first FIVR - fully immersive virtual reality - and eating crap food. I needed to bank some healthy-living points before that.
Someone nearby tooted and I came to an abrupt halt, my head on a swivel. The offending car was about a meter away, trying to turn into the road I’d just bolted across without looking. The driver had a one-finger salute on display, and I could feel my cheeks flushing.
I gave him an apologetic wave and resumed my mad dash. According to my watch I’d texted Logan three minutes ago. Leaving me two minutes left on my deadline. I could actually see my house from here - it was built on the side of a hill directly ahead of me. The hill gave it an excellent view, but meant this home stretch was by far the worst part of the run.
I kept mentally kicking myself as I jogged on. This was such a stupid idea.
My phone bleeped, and a second later my ear-buds started reading the text to me.
“From Logan: I’m logging in now. Catch you on the other side”
“Reply: I’ll be on soon” I panted, letting my phone handle the rest.
I was ascending the hill now, my footsteps pattering closer together as the incline steepened until I felt like I was almost running in place. I gave up and started walking, leaning forward to let my momentum force me up the hill. The home stretch was meant to be the easy part!
I was a sweaty mess when I got inside, and exactly five minutes late. Another two wouldn’t make that big of a difference. I jumped through an icy cold shower, got changed, and made my way into my office.
One of the many perks of my new job was being able to afford a top-of-the-line immersion rig which, until now, had sat unused waiting for my first login. This beauty was the cyberpunk wet dream of the early 2000s. The crude virtual reality headsets of 2017 were like CRT televisions in comparison. FIVR rigs allowed every single one of your senses to be stimulated in real time. In developing the FIVR rig, Ansible technologies had also completely eliminated lag, meaning it was possible to duel someone from across the world without any technical hiccup.
At least, that’s what the marketing package said. I had my doubts, I’d tried to read some of the research papers they’d produced about it, but the math had been indecipherable. That thing about all software developers being math whizzes is a complete myth, I’m walking proof. Even intermediate level math might as well be hieroglyphs to me.
I lay back in the chair and pulled the helmet down over my face. It fit snugly, like a motorcycle helmet, but had no visor. I thumbed the power button built into the seat, and the whir of fans filled the room as the system booted itself up. After a moment a pale blue light appeared in the centre of my vision, indicating the computer was ready.
“Fiver, activate” I said. The system recognised my voice command and began a countdown.
“Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Immersing.”
CHAPTER TWO
I woke up in an empty field. No, that wasn’t quite right. I came to in an empty field. I couldn’t have woken up, because I was already on my feet. In the distance I could see a lonely wisp of smoke rising behind some trees. It was the only thing that marred the otherwise bright blue sky.
I turned in a slow circle and examined my surroundings.
Mountains lined the horizon. To one side a forest loomed close enough that I could count the treetops, but I imagined it would take a while to walk there. I could hear a river burbling nearby but couldn’t see it.
“Welcome to Liorel!” A high pitched voice squeake
d, causing me to jump. I mean, I didn’t jump, I just raised my eyebrows in surprise.
“I’m Jira, I’m your in-game helper.”
I finally spotted the source of the voice - a little glowing green ball of light bobbing up and down a few feet from me. As I studied it the light began to take on a more defined form, and I realised that it wasn’t a ball of light. It was a tiny person with the buzzing wings of a hummingbird and sparkling skin. Its furiously beating wings were spreading a fine mist of glowing dust, like a metal-head with dandruff in a mosh pit.
“Hi there” I said, unsure as to whether I should offer my hand to shake.
“Hi!” The little sprite squeaked. It surged closer so I could see it more clearly before continuing.
“Lets start by making your character. What would you like your name to be?” She asked. I could see that she was feminine now. She wore a tiny dress that looked to be fashioned from a single leaf.
“Call me Azoth” I answered, picking the main character from my favourite novel series. This game was set in a fantasy world, so it was almost a requirement to pick a strange sounding name.
Right?
“Nice to meet you Azoth. Now, I see you’re in a party already. Would you like me to connect you to your party members via a voice channel?”
“You can do that? Yes please”
Jira glowed brighter for a moment before a voice I recognised all too well spoke in my mind. Apparently the voice channel was actually a psychic connection.
“Late as always huh?” Logan laughed
“Yeah, sorry about that. Tried this stupid thing called exercise.”
“All good. I’ve just been sitting here making the most badass character ever. You sorted your build yet?”
“About to, I think.” I turned my attention back to the sprite.
“Jira, what am I meant to do now?” I asked, hoping Logan wouldn’t hear my question.
“We need to select your starting charms. Do you understand how abilities work in Liorel?”
I’d read about it a little bit when Logan had first suggested we play, but I thought I’d better let my enthusiastic helper explain.
“No, not at all.” I said.
“Characters in Liorel get all of their abilities from their equipment. Most items that can be equipped will provide either a passive ability, which is always active, or some active abilities that you can use. Related abilities are grouped together in skill trees. The more abilities you have from a single skill tree, the higher your affinity, and a higher affinity makes those abilities more powerful.”
Jira flitted around my head, as if to make sure her words weren’t going in one ear and out the other. It sounded simple enough so far. Better gear equals better abilities. Matching gear is even better.
“In addition to your armour and weapons, you can equip a small number of charms. These are single-ability items that can be attached to any item. The abilities from an item can’t be changed, but you can change what charms are attached. Charms can’t be looted if you’re killed. Does all of that make sense?”
“I’ll get all my abilities from my equipment, but when I change equipment I’ll get different abilities. Charms are abilities I can move between items. How many charms can I have?” I asked
“Correct. You can have one charm per piece of equipment though they are incredibly rare, and very valuable” The way Jira said that implied these starting charms might be the only charms I ever saw in game. I guess that made sense though - if they weren’t incredibly hard to get then everyone would eventually have every ability in the game.
“Okay, so what starting charms can I get?”
“You can choose any two beginner abilities. Most abilities are grouped into specific classes, to give players an easier way of choosing what to start with. For example, the Barbarian class suggests taking Rage along with either Leap or Provoke.”
I knew that Liorel was a little different from the other role-playing games that I’d played, in that it didn’t have any predefined classes. Any character could theoretically pick up any skill, though most matching gear sets probably had similar types of abilities.
The Barbarian didn’t really interest me. Normally I’d go straight for the rogue class - a sneaky assassin ninja build is my go to in most RPGs. But during the pre-release hype for the expansion they’d released a bit of information on some of the new skills that would be available, and one of them had appealed to me immediately - Polymorph. The whole skill tree seemed to be dedicated to shape-shifting type skills - the hype trailers had shown a character sprouting wings to take flight, and later lashing out with a stretchy tentacle arm. Like if a violent Mr Fantastic had stumbled through a hentai universe. Being able to shape-shift like that seemed amazingly versatile.
“Hey Logan, what are you gonna play as?” I asked.
“I’m rolling up a mage. A couple of fire spells probably” He replied, sounding preoccupied. He had a habit of struggling to put together coherent sentences when he was reading something.
“I was thinking about the Polymorph skills”
“That’d be badass!” He cried, his genuine excitement seemed to bleed through the psychic connection. That decided it.
“Jira, I’d like to focus on Polymorph” I announced.
“Perfect, the recommended Polymorph skills are Chameleon Cloak, which is short term invisibility; Bull Horns, which causes horns to grow from your head, and grants a charging attack; and Dark Sight, which is a passive buff to your vision in the darkness. Which two would you like?”
“Do both my abilities have to be Polymorph?” I asked, though I’d already made up my mind.
“They’re not required to, no. But the more skills you have from a particular tree, the higher your affinity will be.”
“Cool. I want Chameleon Cloak and Bull Horns please”
Jira seemed to glow brighter for a moment and then two hexagonal charms appeared in the air between us. One was a deep purple emblazoned with a shadowy figure, the other was red with the curved horns of a bull carved into it. A thin strip of golden ribbon was tied to the top of each, seeming to hold them in the air even though the other end wasn’t tied to anything.
“Here you go. You’ll be given some starting equipment when you enter the game, for now I suggest you put them in your pockets.” Jira laughed and it sounded exactly like wind chimes on a summers day.
I snatched the charms out of the air and buried them in my pockets.
“Oh, I almost forgot. Your party has been randomly selected for access to the Undead race” Jira chirped as the charms disappeared.
“Wait, what?”
“A small number of players are being selected to play as the unreleased Undead race. You have been randomly selected, and your party members are also granted the opportunity.” Jira replied, bobbing excitedly.
“Dude, you hearing this?” I asked Logan. The only official playable race in Liorel was human, but I knew Logan loved his undead.
“Yeah, and we have to accept right?”
Damn.
“Jira, how common are these undead characters going to be?”
“There will be a few dozen per server, spread across all of the spawn cities. It is highly unlikely you’ll encounter any other undead characters in the early game.”
“C’mon man. We’ll be the only undead for miles, we have to take this!” Logan cheered.
“What are the perks of being undead?” I asked Jira.
The little pixie faltered for a moment, dropping a few feet.
“I’m sorry, I can’t access that information. It’s a surprise for the lucky players!” She chirped.
“Oh man, if we’re playing undead I totally have to play a necromancer” Logan crowed.
A small part of me wanted to protest. It wasn’t that I was against playing as an undead per se, but I wasn’t entirely sold on the idea of going in as an unknown race with unknown abilities in an unknown game. In Liorel you only got a single character per account. If I
didn’t like playing as an undead after a hundred hours, I’d have to throw away all my progress and loot to roll up a new character.
“Dude! Lets do this” Logan urged.
“Fuck it, yeah. I’ll be undead.”
CHAPTER THREE
It was like I’d emptied my ears of water. One moment there was no noise beyond the slight whistle of Jira’s wings keeping her aloft, the next I was being assaulted by all the sounds of a virtual world. Unseen birds sang together from the forest, adding to a backdrop of cicadas rubbing their legs together, making something suspiciously like a progressive rock song. I could hear the occasional clink of metal-on-metal coming from the direction of the smoke. Cows mooed ignorantly.
I could smell them! I could smell cow shit.
“Welcome to the game Azoth.” Jira said as she bobbed up in front of me.
“You’re in the server now. There’s some starting gear here” - she clicked her fingers again and a backpack appeared on the ground by my feet - “ that should get you started. Your party member has spawned over there.” She pointed across the field to where a figure had just popped into view. He stood about as tall as Logan, cloaked in long black robes. From this distance I couldn’t make out his features.
“Now that you’re in the game world the psychic link has been severed. There are skills to replace it that you can learn later in the game. I’m going to go now, but if you call for me I’ll reappear. And remember, Liorel is a dangerous place. Try not to get yourself killed.” She fluttered up to my eye level, and blew me a kiss. Before I could respond she winked out of existence.
“Well that was weird” I muttered.
I knelt by the backpack and pried it open, eager to look at my starting goods. There was a small potion vial containing a warm looking red liquid. I held it up to the light and watched as the light danced through it, casting rainbows on the grass around me. As I examined the potion a little prompt appeared beside it:
Minor healing potion
Restores 20% Health
Pretty standard adventuring gear. I went to fix it to my belt for quick access, only to discover I wasn’t wearing a belt. For the first time, I realised what I was wearing. I had on rough-spun pants made from a fabric that reminded me of a sack. Worn leather boots adorned my feet, looking like my toes would burst through them at any moment. A tunic made from the same sack-like material covered my chest and arms. My hands were gloved in similar material that was infused with leather along the palm and knuckles. A sudden breeze tugged at me, and I realised a cloak was fixed around my shoulders. The hood of the cloak was down, exposing my head to the warm summer air.
