Collecting The Goddess (Chronicles Of KieraFreya Book 1)

by Michael Anderle

  She had recently met the company’s CEO and was now doing her due diligence that the products truly lived up to their claims before investing. The last thing anyone wanted to do was devalue or destroy the family name.

  Henrietta and Henry had made progress in their development of advanced AI to embed within AR and VR, the company now promising its first major trials within the next few months. They had gone into several disagreements they’d had over the recent public launch of a competitor system by a little-known company called Praxis Games Ltd, and now they were at each other’s throats as Henrietta pushed to launch the games earlier, while Henry preferred not to rush into launch due to panic.

  Demetri had kept his eyes down when he mentioned that one, aware that Hugo and Henry had signed a contract a little over 2 weeks ago to allow their youngest, Chloe, to pursue her first investment with Praxis Games. The last thing he wanted was for Hugo and Helen to blame him for causing a fracture in their family relations.

  “I trust you told the twins nothing of our venture with Chloe?” Helen asked, her words calm and measured.

  Demetri confirmed that he hadn’t. Helen gave a small nod and Demetri continued, reeling off Harry’s and Harvey’s progress (about which there was little to report, other than that Harvey was now seeing some 22-year-old supermodel from the Czech Republic and was flying across the world with Harry and his glamorous wife, attending ritzy functions and keeping the world very much aware of the Lagarde name and its prominence within modern society.

  Then Demetri pulled out some notes on paper with the Praxis logo in the corner.

  “And last but not least, there’s Chloe.” Demetri’s eyes met Hugo’s. He couldn’t explain it, but even though there seemed to be no emotion behind those eyes, he felt as though he was being scanned from head to foot.

  “Ah, yes,” Helen said, shifting in her chair. “How is our little experiment going? I trust that we are already seeing results from the...‘pod,’ was it?”

  Demetri nodded enthusiastically, swallowing hard. “Yes, we’re seeing progress. Chloe has already made it to the first main town in Obsidian and has a group of three adventures with her. They’re working their way through the quest to find the rest of KieraFreya’s equipment, but they’re at a bit of an impasse. They’re currently asking around town for any information they can find on Nauriel or the guy who tried to have Chloe murdered, but so far no dice.”

  The tale spun from Demetri’s mouth like water on porcelain. He had never been a serious gamer, but having watched Chloe’s journey so far, he had to admit that the whole thing was pretty entertaining. He now understood how people could sink hours of their lives into pretending to be something they were not in the digital world.

  Helen’s nostrils flared, a minute movement. She adjusted her position in her chair, looming closer to Demetri, who sank slightly, his cheeks flushing as he realized just how stupid he must have sounded to a pair of business-minded gods who had likely never played a game in their lives.

  “I meant, how is the investment? Is the company turning a profit yet? What’s the forecast for the next 6–12 months?”

  Demetri flicked through the sheets of paper, pulling out several pages with graphs and charts and statistics.

  Hugo and Helen stared at the pages for a long time in silence. Demetri watched the digital clock on the wall, taking some solace in knowing that, no matter how important or unimportant a meeting was to the Lagardes, they always made their next meeting on time. They were painfully punctual.

  Hugo made a musing sound in the back of his throat. “Seems aboveboard. Not quite the trajectory that was initially promised, but at least we can say the company is growing. The forecast could be better, but we’re in the clear...for now.”

  “The company is making strides,” Demetri said. “They’ve been slow to grow due to the beta phase of their testing, but as of this morning, they’ve rolled out the platform to the public. They’re starting in the US, then looking to expand and offer the game to players across Europe and Australasia, then the wider world.”

  “We’ll trust your judgment.” Helen nodded. “Keep us up to date with the company’s progress, and we’ll hopefully be able to avoid intervening in your work. Good job, Mr. Smythe.”

  Just as Helen was about to rise from her chair, Hugo placed a hand on hers.

  Demetri followed Hugo’s eyes to several back-to-back pieces of paper that held dozens upon dozens of lines of text detailing error reports filed by users of the game, and the steps the company was taking to fix them.

  Hugo’s finger hovered over Chloe’s name.

  “Our daughter is experiencing grievous physical pain...from a game?” His voice came as a rumble. “Mr. Smythe, please explain.”

  Demetri sighed, detailing Chloe’s experiences within the game and how Praxis had wanted to make the full-immersion experience as accurate and real as possible. The programming caused the player to experience true pain from injury within the game, meaning that a punch would feel like a punch and a scratch would feel like a scratch.

  Unfortunately, that also extended to death scenarios in which a player might get cut, burned, or broken into pieces by the game’s various monsters and dangers.

  “The bug is broadly fixed now. Praxis has lowered the pain receptors for their current pool of players.”

  “It says here that Chloe is the exception.” Hugo’s eyes bore into Demetri’s. “It says that there is no fix.”

  “A game-wide patch has been rolled out, but because Chloe was the first into the game and is experiencing the full-immersion version, they can’t modify her pain receptor programming without pulling her out of the game.”

  Hugo and Helen were silent once more. They scanned the list of bugs, and eventually worked their way to a document that displayed Chloe’s image with a list of numbers and long words that had been pulled straight out of the game’s medical analysis program.

  “All of her vitals are fine?” Hugo asked.

  Demetri nodded.

  “And her in-game demeanor?”

  Demetri gave a soft smile. “She seems to be having the time of her life.”

  Hugo’s head turned back to the documents.

  “It says here that the public rollout will include a live-stream option for the game, allowing anyone who wishes to log in and view. What does this mean?”

  Demetri’s shoulders slumped as he explained that, since the game was now open to the public, part of the game’s initiative to increase sales and promote virality was to make it so that all gamers were now available to instantly be watched by anyone with a working internet connection.

  This would work the same way TV channels did, and would mean that those who couldn’t afford the game could whet their whistles watching others play. Praxis’ long-term goal was to bring in advertisers to promote the channels and increase revenue.

  The live-stream rollout was the update Demetri had been least looking forward to sharing with the Lagardes. Part of the original agreement was that Chloe’s plunge into the game would be under conditions of complete anonymity. No one was to know that a Lagarde was investing in this game, and Chloe was to be given two years free of the burden of her heritage in order to grow as a person and overcome her low-confidence issues from standing in the shadows of the gods that were her family.

  Now, though…

  “Does this mean that anyone can tune in and watch Chloe play live?”

  Demetri nodded. “Although no one will know who the player is. Unless the player specifically gives away their identity in the game, there’s no chance anyone other than us and those sworn to secrecy under NDAs at Praxis will know that Chloe is a Lagarde.”

  Hugo and Helen chewed on this for a moment before a beep came and they checked their watches in unison.

  Hugo stood up, casting one more intense stare straight into Demetri’s eyes. A flicker of a warning flashed over his pupils. “See that it stays that way,” he said simply, turning and moving to the door. He allow
ed Helen to pass in front once more before adding, “and see to it that Chloe comes to no further harm. Tell Praxis the Lagardes are watching them.”

  With that, he left the room, the dark clouds going with him.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chloe smiled heartily as Tag precariously stood on the long bench in the tavern. Already those crowded were raising their cups and demanding an encore. The dwarf had been on fire since they’d arrived, and now the hungry crowd wanted more.

  “Fine! You want to hear stories, huh? You want to know about my first love?”

  A raucous cheer from the crowd.

  Tag cleared his throat, wobbled, then began to sing. His voice turned from the rough bark of trees to the pouring of spring water.

  Harken ye round and I’ll tell ye my tale

  Of ale that’s gone bitter, of bread that’s gone stale

  The bestest of things do go rotten with time

  But never me wine, lad. Never me wine.

  While girls can run off in the dark of the night

  With some prissy-ass floozy who calls him a knight

  I know that red liquid is much more sublime

  No, don’t take me wine, lad. Don’t take me wine.

  Tag began to dance around the table, grabbing a jug of wine from its end and sloshing red liquid into the many cups that were held in his direction. Chloe, Ben, and Gideon laughed with teary eyes, their cheeks flushed from the open fire and their own healthy measures of drink.

  Nights turn blue, and days turn dead

  While dragons and flames soar overhead

  But once the sun comes before and aft the bed

  The sky will turn the color wine-red

  Now, never delay as I chug this away

  and fill up my gullet and liver and lungs

  Never run short and never run dry

  or pack up your homes ‘cause I’ll grab my guns

  I’ll sing it once more just in case you ain’t heard

  That wine is my last and was always my first

  As long as I’ve throat and lungs that may dry

  I’ll soak them with wine, man. I’ll soak them with wine!

  Tag repeated the final line, bringing the song to a crescendo as the entire tavern erupted in a reflective chorus. A large goblet of wine made its way from the nodding barmaid and was passed through the crowd to Tag, who raised it high, cheered, and drained the thing in one go. Dark-red liquid soaked his mustache and dripped down his cheeks.

  He raised the goblet once more and cheered. The crowd echoed his excitement as he jumped to the bench, caught his foot on a wet patch, and flipped onto his back.

  Chloe wondered how many HP that fall took off Tag’s overall health score.

  Tag was pulled up by two ladies wearing tunics that showed off their ample bosoms. His eyes nearly popped out of his head as he thanked them and made his way back to the others, reveling in the backslaps and “Well dones” he received on the way.

  “My, oh my, you sure know how to work a crowd,” Ben greeted him. Standing much taller than Tag, the elf looked down his nose and laughed affectionately. He slow-clapped until the dwarf blushed.

  “It was nothing,” Tag replied, emitting a deep, growling burp. “Everyone is blessed with hidden talents. It’s not my fault that mine is singing.”

  “I thought yours was getting smashed to a pulp by trolls,” Chloe teased, referring to a previous dungeon exploration in which Tag had faced death until Gideon used his healing abilities to bring him back to health.

  “Oh, a bold retort from a woman who seems to favor death far more than life. Tell me, isn’t this some kind of a record for you? Over a week without dying?” Tag hiccupped, forcing back down a lump of vomit. “Surely you must be missing the white room by now? Aren’t you desperate to return?”

  Chloe laughed, scruffing the dwarf’s hair with her knuckles. “Aren’t you the funny man?”

  “Hey! Not the hair!” Tag said, wriggling free of Chloe’s grasp and falling over once more. Several people turned and laughed at Tag, then bent down and helped him up once more.

  Chloe beamed, her head a little woozy from her own alcohol. She was still unable to believe they had found this little piece of paradise out on the Obsidian plains. After traveling for several days, they had reached the small town they had seen from the top of the mountains.

  Hobblesville, as they discovered its name to be, was a real step up from the little forest tribal town of Oakston. This place had all the hallmarks Chloe had come to expect from fantasy MMORPGs. In fact, this town seemed to be almost a direct rip-off of one of the places her ex-boyfriend Blake had preferred when he’d played Relic Hunter years ago.

  Their journey to Hobblesville had been pretty easy. Bar their few chance encounters with some of the wildlife that prowled the woods and plains—wolves, badgers, hawks, and, at one point, a few lonely bears skulking near the caves—they had made steady progress.

  The other side of the mountains was definitely a whole different ball game than the thick woods they had traveled through. The land rose and fell over grassy hillocks, and they saw rivers and streams winding for miles upon miles from the higher rises they scaled.

  Sparse copses of trees provided modest shelter during the nights, when Chloe was left alone to watch the avatars of Gideon, Ben, and Tag after they logged off and re-entered the real world, attending to their lives before returning hours later. On some level, Chloe thought she might envy the others for having the chance to pop the bubble and go back into the world, but then Chloe thought about her real life.

  She had lived for the weekend, spending her money on friends she wasn’t even sure had felt the absence of her presence while she had been immersed in Obsidian. The doc had told her that anyone who asked about her was given the line that Chloe had gone overseas on a 2-year hiatus to “find herself.” A gap year wasn’t uncommon for women in their early 20s, so the line had been soaked up like water into a sponge.

  There was nothing really for Chloe to go back to. Her brothers and sisters had the Midas touch, turning everything they had into gold. Her parents dominated the rest of the gods from their thrones in Olympus, and Chloe had been nothing more than a drunken wastrel who had no business sense, much less cared enough to bother to learn.

  No. Chloe was happier here in Obsidian, even if, on some level, she knew the whole experience wasn’t really real.

  On the way to Hobblesville, none of the adventurers had leveled up, which hadn’t really surprised them. Tag, Ben, and Gideon were sitting pretty at level 9, while Chloe had reached level 10 and was now tasked with choosing which class she should devote her character to out of a pool of 5 options the AI had selected for her.

  Most of the talk on their trip had been about the possibilities of each class and what Chloe could do with each one, but she had delayed the decision, knowing that whatever she selected, she’d be stuck with for the rest of her time in Obsidian. She was smart enough to know that her knowledge of MMORPGs was vastly less than that of the other three, who had adventured together across a range of games for years. If she was to make the right decision, she needed to not rush this.

  “If you choose anything other than Berzerker, I’ll never talk to you again,” Tag had said.

  “Oh, that sounds incredibly tempting.” Chloe winked.

  “Berzerker is amazing! A unique class in which you can smash and destroy people. That Red Rage sounds incredible.”

  Red Rage, as described through Chloe’s in-vision notifications, was an ability that took over the player’s avatar when they were in a pinch. If a player’s health was low enough, a red mist would descend and the character would, in essence, black out until the rage was over.

  “Do we really want someone like that on our team?” Gideon asked, picking the mushrooms Chloe had cooked for them out of his teeth. “A liability who could hurt us as much as help us?”

  Tag huffed. “I’d pick it if it was offered.”

  “Well, we’ll have to watch
out for that, then.” Chloe chuckled.

  “Go for cleric!” Ben had said. “We need more devotion to the gods in this game. For all we know, the gods are watching us right now. What would it hurt to have a devotee in our party? Surely that would work greatly in our favor.”

  While Ben had looked at the sky, Chloe had turned her attention to the emerald and gold bracers she had found on her first trip into a dungeon. It had been quite a surprise when Chloe learned that these pieces of armor had been enchanted, possessed by the disembodied spirit of KieraFreya, a goddess who had fallen from grace and now berated Chloe and sniped at her every chance she got.

  Little does he know just how closely a god is watching him. KieraFreya laughed darkly, her voice sounding in Chloe’s mind. When I make it back to the heavens, I wonder what I’ll do to him?

  Chloe had shaken her head, choosing to ignore KieraFreya as the town came into sight, and they had picked up their pace.

  Now, several days into their residence in Hobblesville, they were all feeling more at home than ever. Chloe watched as Tag was pulled away by several of the local dwarves who had traveled to the town on their way to other ventures. She smiled when Ben engaged in deep conversation with the barmaid who had been batting her eyelashes and waving her breasts in his face since their first trip to the Bucket & Pale.

  She laughed whole-heartedly as Gideon attempted to make his way back from the restroom, looking more uncomfortable than ever as his gangly limbs seemed to get away from his control. People danced and laughed and bumped into him, almost knocking him to the floor on several occasions.

  “Watch your step.” She grinned.

  “That’s easier said than done when there are dwarves, cats, spilled booze, and a whole host of other things on the floor. Do they really act like this every night?”

  Chloe sipped her drink. “As long as good ol’ Tag brings the entertainment.”