Perla Online, Book One: Toris (A LitRPG/GameLit Adventure)

by Shawn Wyatt

  Until this point, I had been so focused on what the Oracle had to say that I had failed to notice other details--the weight of the pistols at my side, the scent of the other characters around me, and the way the light felt on my skin.

  Perla Online took realism to a new level. I pinched my arm as hard as I could, but felt only a dull pain.

  At least the pain sensors had been dialed down. I was thankful for that. I didn't want to actually feel the bite of a sword's edge or the burn of a fireball. But given everything else I had seen, Perla Online would be incredible. It already stood head and shoulders away from every MMO I had ever played.

  A grin spread across my face as I jumped through the portal.

  I couldn't wait to get started. I wanted to explore this world. I want to level up. I wanted to become the strongest player on the server.

  For seven days, I shared that dream with every other player—-until the beta ended.

  CHAPTER THREE: PERMANENCE

  The goblin narrowed its bulging eyes and charged. It held an over-sized spiked club close to the ground, prepared to strike the moment I drew too close.

  Adrenaline surged through my veins. I braced one pistol on my arm and took aim. The system lent only the barest assistance when it came to accuracy. Perla Online demanded players learn to use their weapons and punished those who swung with abandon.

  Many players insisted on the latter method, but it never ended well. The last player that made a reckless attack against a goblin caught a club against the side of his head and disappeared in a shower of pixels.

  The goblin swung. I saw the yellow of its eyes and squeezed the trigger. The bullet erupted from the pistol and sounded far more like a cannon than a flintlock. A hole bloomed between the monster's eyes.

  The goblin staggered and crashed to the ground. Above its head, semi-translucent numbers flashed "5 EXP."

  Golden light blossomed around my body and the word "Congratulations!" appeared over my head. I pumped a fist. Level 8!

  Another prompt appeared.

  You gain three stat points and one skill point.

  I would distribute them later.

  I had progressed slowly. After I made my character teleported to my starting realm, the desert world of Horus, I learned the game was in beta for the next week. The level cap had been set to ten, so I wouldn't be able to explore the Marauder's subclasses. I didn't want to hit max level too fast.

  I explored more than I fought. I hadn't even distributed the other stat and skill points I had earned.

  Marauders started out with three skills. The first was an attack skill called Desert Bullet.

  Desert Bullet -- Fire Damage, 5 Second Cooldown

  Marauders are most at home in the blistering sunlight of Horus. Desert Bullet fires a Caster shell on your next shot, dealing fire damage equal to the amount of your attack. The amount of damage increases by 1% with each level.

  Desert Bullet would do 100% more damage at level 100 without any additional input from me, which tripled my attack power for a single shot. Of course, the cool down time would also increase, but it would be useful for burst damage. Maybe it could even stun an enemy if I needed to get out of a tight situation.

  The next skill was a passive ability called Quick Draw.

  Quick Draw -- Passive Skill

  You are the fastest draw in the realm. Once every minute, you fire a shot that always strikes first and deals 100% weapon damage while stunning an opponent for 3 seconds.

  Quick Draw's low proc chance meant I couldn't rely on it, but if I timed a duel just right it could be useful.

  The final skill was a crafting ability.

  Encaster -- Crafting

  You have the ability to create Caster bullets from raw materials, a skill available only to Marauders.

  Perla Online borrowed from some of the more hardcore tabletop games and required players to track their ammunition and carry extra bullets and arrows. On the bright side, the crafting ability would let me make my own ammunition.

  I leaned over the goblin's corpse and found three copper coins in the pouch on its belt. The main prize from this creature was the claws. I drew a small knife from my belt and slipped it under the base of the claw. I cringed at the resistance.

  The buzz on the forums had focused on Perla Online's unique crafting system. To create and improve weapons and armor, players had to find the requisite materials--a pretty standard part of most MMOs, but Perla Online stepped it up a bit.

  To craft the most powerful weapons and armors, players had to hunt down monsters and remove special ingredients from them: horns, scales, claws, etc. These body parts would not drop in combat, but had to be removed from the creature's fallen corpse with a special carving knife.

  The quality of those ingredients was dependent upon your skill with the knife.

  As I slid the blade along the goblin's finger, I thought about how intense Perla Online could be if it had a gore setting. As it was, an angry red line appeared along the appendage, but no blood seeped out. It would be difficult for this game to get its Teen rating without some serious gore filtering.

  The goblin's claws could be broken down and turned into bullets. They lacked any magical properties, but the pointed tip would inflict a bit of extra damage per shot.

  I had not yet worked out how the game calculated damage, so I didn't want to spend any skill points until I knew how to min/max the character. I had tried variations with the Marauder starter weapons over the past few days.

  The Marauder's Pistols worked better for leveling and all-around damage. The Marauder's Blunderbuss could inflict a massive amount of pain at one time but had a long cooldown period. The Blunderbuss' base attack speed was every 1.5 seconds, while the Pistols fired once per second.

  Though each pistol shot did less damage, their overall damage per second was higher.

  And even though I knew it wasn't a great factor for determining character choice, the twin pistols looked awesome. I wondered if there was a way to become a pirate in the game.

  "Captain Ren" had a nice ring to it.

  I sat down and loaded two more bullets into the pistols. The downside to using the pistols was that I needed to reload them after each shot. There had to be a way to speed up the process, or this build would be completely unviable in battle.

  An Elven girl blundered through the bushes on the edge of the clearing and tripped over a cluster of vines. Something in the forest behind her loosed a frustrated roar. What had she kited over here?

  The girl pulled herself to her feet. "Hey! Help me," she shouted. "I'll split the loot with you." In a blur of movement, she pulled her bow from her back, nocked an arrow, and trained it on the dark spot in the trees.

  Another roar, the time much closer. I holstered my pistols and unslung the shotgun from my back. I hadn't quite gotten the hang of aiming in this game yet, and whatever bounded through those trees sounded angry. I could not miss this shot. "Just what did you manage to piss off in there?" There shouldn't be anything too powerful monsters in the starting area.

  The girl shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I've never seen anything like it."

  The ground almost trembled underfoot as the monster approached. The tip of the girl's arrow glowed softly and small tendrils of flame swirled around the arrowhead. I brought the shotgun to my shoulder and aimed at the trees.

  The creature that emerged looked like the result of interspecies breeding gone bad. Muscles bulged underneath a huge furry body. Its head was that of a deer, with vicious fangs jutted from the upper lips and dripped liquid that sizzled when it touched the ground.

  I squeezed the trigger. The Blunderbuss roared and belched flame toward the monster. Blood bloomed where the shot slammed into the creature's chest. The girl muttered under her breath and the flamed tip of the arrow ignited, tracing an arc of fire through the air as it sank into the creature's side. Flame writhed around the monster and ignited its fur. The attack drew another angry screech.

  I
t turned its gaze toward me, and I fought back a shiver. I could have sworn there was intelligence in that look. I must have generated the most aggro, because the creature lunged forward and bared a mouth full of fangs. I rolled to the side and winced as my HP took a small hit from the impact on the ground. My Blunderbuss rolled away from me.

  The monster had taken two solid hits. Why didn't the its HP gauge show up?

  The girl loosed another arrow, and this one embedded itself into the monster's knee. It stumbled and fell, but staggered back to its feet. I drew my pistols and fired.

  The creature staggered when the first shot slammed into its torso, and the second shot caught it in the forehead. The creature dropped to the ground. A translucent announcement appeared over its head listing out experience.

  All 250 points of it. That put me almost to level 9.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. The creature didn't display a name, even after death. Weird. I turned to the girl. "How did you run across that thing?"

  She stood and wrapped a bandage around a gash on her arm. I hadn't noticed it when she first came out of the forest. "It found me," she said, a grimace on her face. "It took out my companion."

  "Your companion? Have you partied up with someone?"

  She grinned and drew a small whistle from her pouch. "No, this companion." She blew the whistle, and a few seconds later a bear lumbered out of the forest with a growl.

  I fumbled for my weapon, but she laughed.

  "Don't worry, he's okay," she said. "This is Boris." The bear nudged her with its head, and she scratched it behind the ears. "And I'm Evey."

  "I'm Ren," I said. "Nice to meet you. So a bear companion? So that makes you a Beast Tamer?"

  Evey grinned and gave a nod. "You got it."

  "How did you get a companion so early in the game? I thought you had to subclass for it, and those won't unlock until level 10."

  "All Beast Tamers can have companions, but the subclass just unlocks talents that make them more beneficial than they would be otherwise. Boris here got a lot stronger after I specialized." The bear huffed and gave her a look. Evey laughed. "Not that he wasn't strong enough before. But that monster was stronger, whatever it was. Caught us both off guard and killed Boris before I could react."

  I leaned down to inspect the corpse. No subtext appeared to hint at what the creature was. I eyed the fangs, the poison on their tips gleaming in the sunlight. "Do you want any components?"

  Evey tapped her finger against her chin. "I'll take half the coins it dropped, and you can take whatever components you can get from it."

  "You've got yourself a deal." Now it was my turn to grin. Those poison-tipped fangs would increase my damage output, or at least give a nasty debuff to whatever they hit.

  I pulled out the knife once more and removed the other components. When I finished, I had amassed the following.

  Items Earned!

  2x Poison Coated Fangs (Excellent Condition)

  4x Poison Coated Fangs (Good Condition)

  17x Sharpened Nails (Good Condition)

  Maybe there would be a way to reliable farm these? Poison bullets would be nice, but six of them wouldn't last long.

  Before I could follow that train of thought farther, a prompt appeared in front of me.

  Player teleporting in 5...4...

  A forced teleport? I hadn't heard of any spell like that. "What's going on?"

  Evey shook her head. "I have no idea."

  3...2...

  I gritted my teeth and pulled back the hammers on both pistols. I didn't know what waited on the other side, but I would be ready.

  1.

  Initiating teleport.

  A wave of disorientation hit as an iridescent portal opened in the air in front of me. Undulating tendrils of energy reached out and wrapped around my arms and legs and yanked my body through the portal. I managed to land on the other side with pistols drawn.

  Other players landed around me, most with far less grace. I looked around and recognized the same golden parapets from the first day of the Beta. Evey tumbled through her own portal, took one look around, and rolled out of the way. Within seconds, the reason became clear.

  Boris bowled through the portal and flopped on the ground. The bear gave an indignant roar that pierced the air and drew the attention of the nearby players.

  I grabbed the arm of the player closest to me. "Hey. Do you know what's going on?"

  The guy shook his head. "Not a clue. I was yanked out of a party." His eyes glazed over for a moment. "Looks like the teleport disbanded the party, too."

  The plaza looked different than it had my first time here. Dark storm clouds frothed overhead. Tongues of lightning traced patterns in the sky. The shimmering golden towers seemed dull under the gloomy sky, and pockets of dark energy wrapped around them and pulsed in time with the lightning.

  Two towers stood to either side of a central citadel. Different colored strands of energy writhed around each tower: green, blue, grey, yellow. The central citadel glowed an ugly purple.

  The old man no longer stood on the dais. In his place, a taller, slimmer man stood, his face shrouded by a hood. One gnarled, almost skeletal hand gripped a bleached-bone staff, its length inlaid with precious jewels. Players continued to cascade into the plaza until people stood shoulder to shoulder.

  Was this an event? The official start to the game? I looked at the in-game clock at the upper right of my interface. 12:01 AM.

  The Beta had ended one minute before. The players that filled the plaza must be those that logged in the moment the game went live. The monster Evey and I encountered earlier must have been a glitch.

  The game hadn't exactly been locked. Anyone that wanted could download the game file and start playing. There was no need to stress the server this way.

  The man on the dais rapped his staff. A streak of black lightning raced from the sky and slammed into the end of the weapon. The players fell silent.

  "Welcome, adventurers." The voice rasped with each word. Several players shivered at the sound. "I see many of you recognize this plaza. This is Ilia," the man said. "But not as you remember it. And it belongs to me."

  Laughter echoed throughout the plaza, but no one could quite pinpoint the sound.

  "Now that Perla Online has officially gone live, there are a few changes you should be made aware of before you embark on your journey. The first is that you have all been reset to level one."

  Angry shouts rang through the plaza. I ignored the urge to check my character screen. A hard reset at the end of a Beta wasn't surprising, but no one wanted to lose progress.

  "The second is that the user interface has changed. Consider this a hot fix, if you will. Many of you cried for realism." The man paused, and the sky above us grew darker. "Consider this realistic."

  I watched as the in-game clock, the directional tools, and all other indicators vanished from my screen. All that remained were the HP and MP bars. From the sounds of shock around me, I assumed the same had happened to other players.

  "And finally, the sensory input restrictions have been removed. Completely." As if to illustrate the point, the man pointed a long finger at one of the players at the front of the crowd. A thin lance of dark energy arced across the distance and into the player's arm.

  The player's screams broke the silence that followed.

  "In this world, the stakes are higher ever before. You will feel your injuries. You will feel fear." The man started to turn away. "Oh, and one more thing. If you want to leave, you'll need to defeat me."

  What exactly did he mean by that? I focused on the menu, thankful when it appeared--that part of the interface, at least, untouched by the changes--and felt my stomach drop.

  The logout button was gone.

  CHAPTER FOUR: THE DANGEROUS REALM OF TORIS

  An empty menu space where the logout button had been stared back at me.

  "This isn't possible," I said. My voice didn't reach anyone else. The silence in the plaza deafe
ned me, but it lasted only for a few short moments before the screaming began.

  "I can't log out!" Someone shouted from across the plaza. A glazed look crept over the eyes of the players nearest me as they visualized the menu and tried to log out.

  Evey and I shared a look. In that moment, I'm sure I had the same expression of "there's no way this is real" that she did.

  A wave of color washed over us both, and the disorientation of the teleport followed.

  ***

  I came to in the middle of a clearing. Evey laid a few feet away, and Boris laid even farther than that in a large pile of fur. I sat up and shook my head.

  I winced. Not a good idea. A headache bloomed behind my eyes. What had happened? I remembered the forced teleport, the weird necromancer in town...

  My level. The necromancer had reset it.

  I pulled up my character sheet. Level 8. I had not yet distributed any stat points. Was that why I still held my level? A glitch in the algorithm? I visualized the log out button once more, but nothing appeared in front of me.

  A bead of sweat trickled down my face. I forced myself to take a deep breath and fought down the lump in my throat.

  For the first time in the virtual world, I felt real fear.

  I also felt physical sensations I had never felt in virtual reality before. I had never felt sweat on my face. I had never felt the pounding of my heart in my chest. I hesitated a moment, then pinched my arm.