by Rick Scott
Contents
Title
Chapter 1: Diana
Chapter 2: Advantage
Chapter 3: True Strength
Chapter 4: Separation
Chapter 5: Interloper
Chapter 6: Goddess
Chapter 7: Safe
Chapter 8: Scout
Chapter 9: Run
Chapter 10: Affinity
Chapter 11: Gauntlet
Chapter 12: New London
Chapter 13: Queen Angela
Chapter 14: Repast
Chapter 15: Rank Up
Chapter 16: A Rude Welcome
Chapter 17: Mini Games
Chapter 18: Gun Queen
Chapter 19: Lord Kurgan
Chapter 20: Regroup
Chapter 21: Deal or no Deal
Chapter 22: Trouble Shoot
Chapter 23: The Council
Chapter 24: New Recruit
Chapter 25: Gun Blade
Chapter 26: Sleuthing
Chapter 27: Leading
Chapter 28: On display
Chapter 29: Come Back
Chapter 30: Escalation
Chapter 31: Gilly’s Gift
Chapter 32: Predate Prep
Chapter 33: Date Night For Real
Chapter 34: Western World
Chapter 35: King of Queens
Chapter 36: Lennox
Chapter 37: Proxy
Chapter 38: Lamentations
Chapter 39: Trusted Enemies
Chapter 40: First Lap
Chapter 41: Sanctioned
Chapter 42: Making Memories
Chapter 43: Into the Depths
Chapter 44: Countdown
Chapter 45: Thunder Ball
Chapter 46: True Loss
Chapter 47: Reflections
Chapter 48: Into the Sphere
Chapter 49: Awakened
Chapter 50: My Blood
Chapter 51: Homecoming
Chapter 52: Reprisal
Chapter 53: Royal Revolution
Chapter 54: Battle Royale
Chapter 55: Aftermath
Chapter 56: Goodbyes
Chapter 57: Epilogue
Author’s Note
Gun Blade
Crystal Shards Online Book 4
By
Rick Scott
Cover Art and Design by Alberto Besi
Copyright © 2019 by Rick Scott
All Rights Reserved.
VER 1.00
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
* * *
Acknowledgments
To my wife and kids. This is all for you guys!
Special thanks to all my alpha and beta readers too numerous to name but who watched me bring this book together from scratch and helped me do it!
You guys did wonders for the book!
Thank you!
For more great GameLit/LitRPG reads, check out
https://www.facebook.com/groups/GameLitSociety/
Will you leave me a review? Your feedback and thoughts really make a difference, especially for people who want to know what the book is about. If you can, please consider leaving a review on Amazon.com.
My eternal thanks in advance if you do so!
-Rick Scott
Chapter 1: Diana
Fury rises in my chest like a blast furnace.
Something inside me snaps and I can’t think straight anymore. No. This is it. No more! I will not allow this sick excuse for a human being to keep hurting the people I care about. My eyes fix upon my arch nemesis as I run across the dark expanse of the caldera. King Braxus is less than a football field’s length away, just outside his log cabin fort and surrounded by a score of guards. We have an army chasing after us but I don’t care. Whatever the cost, there’s no question in my mind now. I’m sending Braxus to a world filled with endless torture and pain.
A world far better than he deserves.
In my mind I go through everything that has brought me to this point. My quest within the Crystal Shards to save my dying mother that led me to the surface world, a world that’s both real and yet still part of the game. Our first encounter with King Braxus back in Stormwall; the courage of Lady Diana, who risked everything to free us from him; and then my own weakness, when I passed up the opportunity to end Braxus with a single backstab.
That won’t be happening again.
Not tonight.
That mistake led to Gilly’s death and our ordeal in the Labyrinth of Onisozo and now it’s led to Lady Diana becoming a puppet for Braxus as well. My heart swells with contempt as I watch Braxus, laughing like a child, while Lady Diana, imprisoned in her sheer emerald dress, services him like a plaything—nuzzling his neck from behind as she wraps her arms around him.
The sight sickens me.
I can’t stand it.
I won’t!
My friends are all around me, Gilly running at my side as we cross the caldera, heading towards the cliff face that will lead us to the wild and our destination of New London beyond. But I can’t go with them.
Not now.
I need to act!
“Go on without me!” I say, breaking off from the party and charging towards Braxus’ camp. “Keep them distracted!”
“Reece, no!” Gilly cries out and snatches my wrist, pulling me to stop.
We all stop then, kicking up shale. It’s the dead of night with a waxing moon high overhead amidst the stars. But a flare fired from the camp has added to that now, illuminating us against the pitch-black ground of the caldera.
“We don’t have time to deal with this now,” Gilly says. Her Half-Elven features catch in flare light—short dark hair with green eyes and slightly pointed ears. She’s beautiful, the girl I love, but right now she’s looking none too happy with me. And I probably shouldn’t blame her. After the battle we’ve just been through with the Giant Legendary Monster, Witgar, and narrowly escaping a whole army, getting captured is the last thing any of us want.
“We need to stick with the plan,” she says. “That army is literally right behind us!”
Gilly’s right. Already I can hear the thunder of snapping tree trunks from the forest we just departed. I can’t see the army yet, but by the collapsing treetop canopy, they’re less than a quarter mile from the caldera.
And they’ll be bursting through that treeline at any moment.
“That’s why I need to go alone,” I say. “If you all keep running they won’t be paying any attention to me. They’ll be focused on you. It’s my opening.”
Gilly stares back at me with incomprehension in her big green eyes.
She probably can’t understand. Can’t understand the pain and suffering my one mistake has caused us all. Has caused her. And I have to make it right. “I’ve got to do this, Gilly. I can stealth. I can end all of this.”
“So can I,” Aiko says, stepping forward, her arms folded across her chest. The violet-haired elf pulls one of her Thief’s blades from her shapely, leather-clad thighs. “I’ll go. I’ll do it.”
“No!” I shout. She’s not doing this to me again. “You know this is something that I need to do, Aiko. Not you.”
She flinches at my harsh words but it only hardens my resolve. It was my mistake and I need to fix it.
“Hey, if you go we all go,” my brother, Maxis, says, staring at me over the top of his dark shades. He’s a few years older than me, same crystal-blue eyes and dark hair, but bu
ilt like a linebacker at twice my size. He’s breathing heavily from our marathon run through the forest, his red karate gi stained with sweat. “We can’t break this party up again. Not now. If we do this, we do it together.”
“We can’t afford to get crushed between two armies either,” Val Helena says. The blonde giantess with the face of a goddess steps towards me forcefully in her gleaming Paladin armor. She towers over me with her massive eight-foot frame and then looks down with a scowl. “Reece, just forget about him! We’ve got to go!”
Rembrandt, the bald cyberpunker with mirrored shades, looks at me, but doesn’t say anything out loud.
I get a PM instead.
Rembrandt: Pay attention to your motivations, Reece. Is it strength driving you now? Or vengeance?
I grimace as the words appear on my HUD. I know what he’s saying, but I can’t ignore the gnawing in my gut. I hate this. One person telling me one thing. Another person something else. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of worrying if I’m wrong or right. Tired of second-guessing myself all the time. The only thing I know is that I need to act.
And the opportunity is now.
I pull my wrist from Gilly. “If he dies, there’s no more reason to run. I’m going…”
Gilly’s eyes melt with pain. “Reece…no!”
“Let him go,” Becky says, her voice even but authoritative. The dark-haired Halfling gives me a nod. “If there’s anyone who can do it, it’s him. Aiko, go with him.”
Her words give me a new-found confidence. This is the second time now that Becky has entrusted her faith in me and she still barely even knows me. Again she’s seeing something in me the others don’t. Something that even I don’t.
But I can feel it.
“Everyone keep going for the barrier,” I say as I take off. “Distract them while we attack.”
I get a PM.
Gilly: I don’t feel good about this, Reece… ):
Me: I know. But you will. Soon.
* * *
I cast Shadow Wall and take off with Aiko by my side. I can’t see her as we both clamber up the slight incline leading to Braxus’ camp, but I can sense her and vaguely make out her translucent outline as she runs next to me.
It’s all come down to this. Finally my opportunity to right this wrong is here and just a few hundred feet away.
“So what’s the plan, pretty boy?” Aiko says through the party chat, her voice reverberating with her rapid footfalls.
I glance up at Braxus. There are maybe twenty guards standing around him, firing arrows at our friends who are now traversing the open shale towards the crack in the cliff face. I pray they’ll be alright, but I can’t afford to worry about them at the moment. I have a job to do and if I do it right, we won’t ever need to run from this freak again. I move quickly across the caldera in a brisk run, positioning so I have a clear line of sight.
“Watch my back,” I say, drawing my kunai. “I’m going for it.”
I slow as I get within fifty feet, going from sprinting to creeping. I draw on every ounce of my Sneak skill to traverse the short stretch of shale between me and the man I hate. I grip my blades in absolute silence, creeping past the first line of guards.
So far so good.
“Reece, be careful…” Aiko says through the party chat. “If anything goes wrong, just book it.”
“I know,” I say. “I’ve got this.”
This is my moment. My chance to redeem every bad call I’ve ever made when it comes to this guy. To avenge Gilly’s death. To avenge Aiko and Diana. She’s still wrapped around him like a plaything, whispering in his ear. My stomach turns as he laughs snidely and points at my friends still running for the cliff face.
“Come on!” he shouts. “Get ‘em, you worthless shots! Geez!”
Just the sound of his nasally voice drives my blood to boil.
I halt as a second contingent of soldiers passes between Braxus and me, and then I curse inwardly as they all stop. Darn it. There are at least four of them, all standing within about three feet. But I can’t stop now.
I’m a Ninja. I can do this!
I engage my Sneak again and begin creeping towards them. I move in slow motion, wary of the brittle shale as I slowly transfer my weight from foot to foot.
“Reece!” Aiko says through the chat. “Stop! They’re too close!”
I ignore Aiko’s warning and get a notification instead.
Your Sneak skill increases by 0.7!
Skill Up! Your Sneak skill is now 88!
Sweat runs down my back. I know each move I make is probably giving them Awareness checks, but I have to keep moving. I manage to get past the nearest soldier, close enough to see her dark hair and blue eyes as she squints to fire another arrow at my friends still running across the caldera.
Keep going…almost there.
I sneak past the last guard and finally there’s nothing left between me and Braxus except three feet of shale. The anticipation of ending him all but consumes me as I creep the last few steps. I force myself to ignore Lady Diana as she continues to embrace him from behind like a second coat. His actual coat, his stupid pimp robe, leaves his bare chest exposed. A clear shot.
I’ve finally got you, you sick freak.
Anger and vengeance swells in my heart like a poison.
This is it…
I whip my arm back with a Charged Attack, buffing myself with Backstab.
Die, you worthless piece of crap!
“DIE!”
I release my Charged Attack and my kunai flies towards his sternum.
A moment of exhilaration bursts through me as my blade lands with a satisfying thud, piercing deep into his chest.
You Backstab Braxus for 724 damage!
Blood spurts like a fountain and his eyes shoot wide open with shock. The look is replaced by horror as I materialize before him, a vengeful smile on my lips.
“Checkmate, you little punk!”
His Health bar drops to a sliver and he shudders as hot blood spills down my hand and arm, seeping away the rest of his HP. I’ve done it. I’ve actually done it! As I stare into his face, still marred with incomprehension and pain, I’m not quite sure what I feel.
Relief? Justice? Anger still?
Perhaps all three, but as my anger wanes, I begin to feel something else.
Horror…
Not so much at what I’ve done, but what I became to do it. The anger and vehemence I reveled in just seconds ago feels alien to me now.
It was like I became something else.
Something that I now….don’t quite like.
Braxus clutches his chest about my hand and I feel the weight of his body pulling at me as his legs give way. His face twists in pain but then his expression changes. His eyes shift to me as a stupid grin creeps onto his face.
“Wow…” he croaks with a gurgle of blood. “Didn’t think you’d have it in you, my man. I’ll remember this… next time…”
Next time?
He falls limp as his HP drops to zero.
You defeated Braxus.
You gain 10750 experience points.
His body collapses into nano-dust, falling though Diana’s arms who is now facing me with dull, hollowed-out eyes. I wait a second for the prompts to appear on my HUD: the big congratulations for fulfilling Diana’s quest and freeing Stormwall, the option to claim the city as my own.
But nothing happens.
A sickness enters my stomach as I sense something is very wrong…
I’m about to cast Shadow Copy when a blinding pain rips through my body.
“Argh!”
You take 402 piercing damage!
A crystal lance strikes me from above and pins me to the ground.
I Retreat with a backflip, breaking the crystal and removing the hold effect, but two more crystal spears cut through the sky and slice into me, rooting me firmly in place.
You take 388 piercing damage!
You take 406 piercing damage!
Yo
u are rooted!
Oh God…
Pain crumples my body like wet cardboard as the crystal spears form an X, piercing me through, literally crucifying me where I stand. Blood pools at my feet and my Health bar slips into the red. I check my HP.
526/1732 HP
This can’t be happening…
A slow clap comes from above. I look up to see the fat man, Lord Xavier, standing on a wooden balcony connected to the tent fortress. To either side of him are two War Mages with their hands already aglow.
Diana suddenly animates before me and gives me a wicked leer.
“Well, well…” she says in a sultry voice as she saunters towards me. “About time you showed up…Shard Warrior.”
Chapter 2: Advantage
“The bigger question is…” Carl, the sonar tech said. “If Dennis was actually able to understand that noise…then what the hell does that make him?”
Bruce Peters’ skin prickled at the comment.
He stared at the hologram of Dennis Fields, the man in question…if he was even a man.
The equipment was now silent, but just moments ago the recording of Dennis—the Head Software Engineer —played, revealing his interaction…no…conversation with something unseen, something that communicated to him in a series of inhuman screams like a demon from hell.
The memory of it caused a shudder to run through his soul.
Across from him, Carl settled back down into his seat and the two men didn’t say anything for a while.
Bruce still didn’t know what to make of it. His flesh crawled at the idea that not only was Dennis somehow communicating with the AIs…but perhaps… was one of them.
His stomach rose into his throat with bile.
No…not after all these years.
Bruce shook his head. “This can’t be. There’s got to be some other explanation.”
Carl gave him a grimace. “Now’s not the time for rationalization, Bruce. You heard what I heard. What the hell else could he be?”
