by Ember Lane
Barakdor
Book 1
The Legacy Builder -The Chronicles Of Lincoln Hart
Featuring Lincoln Hart
Book 2
Alexa Drey - The Veils Of Lamerell
Featuring Alexa Drey
Book 3
Alexa Drey - Hero Hunting
Featuring Alexa Drey. Guest Star Lincoln Hart
Book 4
The Secrets Of Starellion - The Court Of Lincoln Hart
Featuring Lincoln Hart
Book 5
Alexa Grey - The Prince Of A Cheated House
Featuring Alexa Drey. Cameo by Lincoln Hart
Book 6
Random - The Chaos Of Lincoln Hart
Featuring Lincoln Hart
Book 7
The Gates of Striker Bay
Featuring Alexa Drey
Due End of Oct 2019
Alexa Drey: The Veils Of Lamerell
Barakdor Book 2
Ember Lane
Copyright © 2018 by Ember Lane
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN: 9781980770435
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
About Barakdor
LitRPG Links
1
The Gilden Lode
Taking a breath, I held out my wrist and swept it under the scanner. Ahead of me, a scruffy-looking man stank of booze and synthetics. He had an old Merc jacket on—creased and dirty—like he’d slept in a waiting room or on a corridor floor. A lot of the other passengers were messed up, one last party before the flight, some were clearly nervous, others full of false bravado. None of us truly knew what the future held. The machine announced the drunk guy's name, Brandon something, and he walked into the Grav Buster.
“Your turn next, Alexa,” a shrill voice called, and a little hand pushed me forward.
His name was Pog, and we’d spent the last hours together. It was a lonely business, waiting to leave everything you’ve ever known, with no hope of ever returning. Both Pog and me, and an older man called Lincoln, had sat together in the bland waiting room. Between us, we weren’t leaving anyone we cared for behind, well, that wasn’t entirely true. Lincoln was.
Total Mind Immersion, that was their solution, and it sounded both horrific and plain stupid. The constant battle between ageing, and the time it took to travel to the new settlement planets hadn’t yet been solved.
So far eight ships had set out for Celleron. We were the ninth and last. There were rumors flying around that contact had already been lost with the other ships. That was unsettling, to say the least. But what did we know? The machines rarely updated us with bad news. We’d still board anyway. What choice did we have? Earth was broken.
Lincoln was in his mid forties, a broad trunk of a man, the type you’d imagine building a log cabin for you, using just his teeth. He didn’t look his age—he had that thing—that spark about him that kept vitality despite passing years. His disheveled, curling black-and-gray hair and bushy sideburns lent him a homely look. I kinda hoped I’d see him on the other side.
He was less skeptical than me about the pods.
The issue with the stasis was simple; while the pods could keep your body preserved, the mind needed feeding. It needed to laugh, to worry, to experience highs and lows, to avoid and fear danger, to seek thrills and hunt down love. More than that, though, the human mind needed to learn, and just unplugging it meant it degraded, and madness followed.
So, the machines had come up with a solution.
Pog’s little hand snaked into mine, and we boarded the Grav Buster. It was little more than a shuttle. A hundred and fifty or so seats, around twenty rows of eight, a central aisle dividing them in two—it was a glorified cab. It would break us out of the Earth’s atmosphere and dock with our ship, The Spear Of Light. Now aboard it, there was no way back, there never had been, really.
“Here?” Pog asked. It had only been a few hours, but it seemed I was his unofficial mother, though I’d have preferred "elder sister." Pog was a survivor, one of the many who had lived through the diseases that ravaged the lands beyond the cities. Whatever plague infected the outside, somehow children often survived. The machines gathered them up. Human DNA was precious now, not to be wasted.
That’s why they had to get the pods right.
We shuffled into our seats: me, Pog and Lincoln, strangers a few hours ago, almost family now. A few rows ahead, Brandon hacked. The smell of stale booze filled the cabin.
“All set,” said Lincoln, buckling up. “So, what are you hoping for?” he asked me.
“Hoping for?” I wondered what he was talking about. I’d noticed he’d a habit of assuming everyone was on the same train of thought as him.
“In this game. What do they call it? Barakdor, that’s what.”
“I just can’t see it,” I replied, and I couldn’t. I’d never played them. I knew a lot of folk who had, hell, near enough the whole world played them in the end; it was better than the reality around them, but not me. Never understood the appeal. Though the Earth was devastated and decaying all the time, it was still more enticing than sticking your head in a helmet and scooting off to some fantasy world.
“See what?” Lincoln’s voice, incredulous. “Really? You’ve gotta embrace it. It could be the difference between staying sane and going mad.”
“Probably drive me mad,” I said, buckling Pog up and then myself.
“It's got dwarves, goblins, wizards and dragons!” Pog said, his eyes beaming up at me. “I hope we can play together.”
That made it sound even worse—not the playing with Pog—the goblin thing. Still, I didn’t fancy going insane either. A girl shuffled onto the seat next to Lincoln. She was about seven years younger than me, I suppose: sixteen, seventeen, something like that. Her earbuds told all that she wasn’t interested in talking, though Lincoln tried to introduce himself, bless him. It fell on stony ground.
“What are my choices?” I asked him. He looked decidedly sad at being blanked by the girl.
“What?” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t quite understand what had just happened. “If it's anything like the games I’ve played before, you can…” He scratched his graying stubble. “You can build, quest or fight.”
I thought on it. Questing or building, I decided and then realized that I was actually taking it seriously, as if some kind of challenge was ahead of me.
“Of course,” Lincoln continued, “Questing involves some fighting, building involves some fighting and a touch of questing.” He shrugged. “And fighting involves fighting with a smidge of questing but very little building.”
“I’m going questing,” said Pog, and I looked down at his eager face and began to wonder if he’d survive in the game. I mean, he was so small…
“What happens if you die?” I asked. A
ssuming it was a real-life game, you had to have the chance of dying.
The drunk man, Brandon, scoffed. “You die, you suffer,” he shouted back. I guessed he was about my age, guessed he was a dick.
It was then I realized that the Grav Buster was near silent, just us talking. I supposed that Lincoln, Pog, and I had formed a little group and everyone else was on their own. Even the girl next to Lincoln had slipped her earbuds out and waited for his reply.
“Best guess,” he said, “is that Brandon is correct. There has to be a price, else why figure your way out of a sticky situation? I heard that to keep your mind sharp, the game has to be on the edge, has to be as realistic as possible.”
Brandon shuffled around. “They’ll strip you of your gear, or you’ll have a cooldown, maybe a maze or something. I’ll bet it’ll get worse the more you die. That’s how I’d do it.” He turned back, as though any of our opinions were insignificant.
“What do you think?” Lincoln said, turning to the girl next to him.
“Me?” she replied. “I’ll do my best to survive. It’s what I do.” She popped her earbuds back in, severing any more inquiry.
My own ears popped as the hatchway shut, the engines powered, and the Grav Buster taxied up onto the launchway. Pog’s little hand snaked into mine again, and we blasted off. So that was it, I thought. Nice knowing you, Earth.
It took us the best part of a day to get close to the ship. Pog’s porthole lent us the briefest of views of it. Vast, glinting gold with the sun; the ship was a slow-spinning helix. The engines would power it forward, spinning the helix, creating some form of artificial gravity. Something like that, anyway—I’d be tucked up in my pod…questing… I chuckled inside. The ship was enormous, fantastical, but soon the whole scene was lost to the whites of its encompassing skin.
Pog was eager to get aboard now: that youthful exuberance, Lincoln looked tired already, the girl bored, and Brandon was snoring. Docking woke him up. I’d already decided that I definitely didn’t want to get stuck in a game with him.
Folk began to get up, milling around in the aisle, fighting for space. Our row appeared to all be of the same mind—wait them out—and so we were the last off. I’d expected a loading bay or some sort of check-in, but we actually disembarked straight into a cramped, square seating area where we all duly sat and a sterile AI voice told us to wait.
“I heard they allot you a pod straightaway,” Brandon said, now sitting opposite us. Close-up, he looked like he’d been through hell and back. “Bit of a party the night before—leaving party,” he said, as though he needed to explain his state.
“Oh,” said Lincoln.
“Yeah,” he carried on. “They get you here, sort out your pod and pop you in. No induction, nothing. Did you know they started loading this a month ago? Man, we’ll have some catching up to do.”
“Probably more than one server,” Lincoln muttered, but it was all gibberish to me.
“One slice of server per ship, all nine integrated somehow, that’s what the whisper is,” Brandon told us.
“So,” I said, “you’ve all played games before?”
The girl spat out her gum. “You haven’t?” she said, clearly amazed.
“Never.” I used to be proud of that fact, now I was beginning to regret it.
“You’re screwed. Get used to dying.” She put her earbuds in.
I wanted to rip them right out.
“I’ll look after you,” said Pog, and he squeezed my hand.
The monotone voice started calling out names over a PA. Brandon left first and headed through a door to one side of us. He muttered a bored goodbye. The girl was about ten turns after him, then Lincoln, and finally Pog.
“Come find me,” he said and planted a kiss on my cheek. “And I’ll look you up. What’s your name?”
“Alexa,” I said. “Alexa Drey.”
“Great game name,” he shouted, as he scuttled off.
Left without my companions, I noticed a man had snuck into the room and was standing against a set of double doors. He had a smart uniform on—I guessed he was part of the crew. Something about him made a shiver run up my spine. At the same time, something about him was quite enticing.
More folk were called out, and one by one, they stood and left. Soon, I was alone. Well, nearly alone, just me and the man.
“Alexa Drey,” he eventually said, “this way please.” He turned, and the two doors slid open.
I followed him out into a gray corridor.
“Is there some kind of problem?” I asked, catching up with him.
He looked at me. “Problem? No. Why would there be?”
“Everyone…”
“Everyone else has played some sort of game before. Everyone else has had their neurological pathways checked and all the game levels adjusted to suit. We have no data on you, so we don’t know what would suit you best.”
The corridor was empty, just lines of closed doorways.
“Questing probably,” I ventured, and his returned gaze made me feel foolish. “If there is such an option,” I added quickly.
He grunted a laugh. “There’s always an option,” and he turned and swept through a doorway just as it opened. We entered a room that looked a bit like a small hospital ward. It had a row of seven beds, opposite them some capsules—I guessed they were the pods—and a central table with chairs tucked under. “We thought it best in here for you, in case the game rejects you or vice-versa. Like I said, we have no data on you. If I’d realized, I’d have refused you a place, but it’s too late now. So many settlers, such little time.”
“If the game rejects me?”
“It might force you out if your brain can’t handle the sensory overload. It’s not just any game, certainly not one that is suited to a novice gamer. So, we thought it best to give you the spare billet in our room, just in case.”
“Thank you,” was all I could think of saying. “Your room?”
“Crew,” he muttered. “Good, well—” He proceeded to instruct me exactly how to use the pod, what to do if I was "bounced" out of the game and then made to leave.
“Wait,” I shouted after him. “Aren’t you going to tell me how to play? I’ve no idea.”
He turned, just by the door. It was then I noticed his piercing, green eyes. “That’s hardly my fault. No doubt the AI has fathomed a way to ease you in gently.”
“Gently?”
He shrugged. “Probably won’t overload you with attributes and stats to start. They can be quite daunting if you don’t know what they do.” He smiled. “Computers, AIs, they can be quite clever, whatever you think, and this one is programmed to at least try and keep you sane.” He winked at me. “Maybe it’ll give you an experienced guide or two. Now, strip off and get in. It’s either that, or a very boring couple of dozen years.” He left without another word.
So I stripped, got in the pod, hooked myself up and pressed "Engage" on the touch screen. The pod’s lid closed, and it filled with a sapphire liquid. I remember thinking that I was going to drown as it leached up my nostrils, and that was my last memory of it.
The filtered blue light darkened. Lines of text appearing in my mind’s eye, scrolling past, and I assumed that the game was booting up. The code began to stutter, and then hang.
Error code 319 - Spawn point unavailable - scanning for new………………
Error code 558 - Subject Alexa Drey not recognized - seeking clarification……………
Error code 1058 - Starter bag missing - no resolution possible…………..
Error - unable to prevent spawn.
…………Spawn point relocated to core…………
Eh?
The world in front of me changed from blue to an orangey-brown, a completely ordinary mud color—not the fantasy-scape I was expecting—no castles teetering on savagely high cliffs, no fire-breathing dragons flying majestically in a violet sky. It was the color of a tunnel, and that was exactly what I was standing in. A few feet wide,
a couple of feet taller than my own height, I soon saw that the mud was actually rock, and the rock had gold veins cracking through it that gave off an iridescent light. It was uncannily realistic.
Reaching out, I touched it. It felt slightly cold, and yet the tunnel itself was warm. I was standing on an easy incline that curled to my right. I got the distinct sense that I was in the midst of some sort of spiral walkway, yet I was reticent to carry on walking down it, assuming I’d walked to get this far, of course.
A small green dot blinked in the corner of my eye. Focusing on it, a prompt flashed across my vision.
You are in the Gilden Lode that leads to the Endings River. You have stats available at any time. Do you wish to access your stats?
I hesitated at first, but soon decided that it could do no harm.
“Yes please.” My voice echoed down the path.
The message began to flash, almost like it was repeating itself. I tried thinking "Yes." It vanished, replaced by a list of sorts.
Name: Alexa Drey. Race: Human. Type: Chancer.
Age: 24. Alignment: None. XP: 0, Level: 1.
Profession: None. Un/Al pts: 0. Reputation: Nobody.
Health Points: 10/10 Energy: 10/10 Mana: 0/0
HP Regen: 1/Min EN Regen: 1/Min MA Regen: 0/Min
Attributes: (Level, Bonuses)
Vitality: (1, 0), Stamina: (1, 0)
