Viridian Gate Online: Nomad Soul: A litRPG Adventure (The Illusionist Book 1)

by D. J. Bodden

  Every spy, defense, and law enforcement agency in the United States had a stake in Viridian’s success. The feeling of mortality experienced by testers had already proven itself as a more humane solution than actual torture. There had been hope that sleep deprivation and simulations could open new, more effective means of interrogation. There were field applications in covert communication, wargaming, small unit telepathy, and recreation for troops on submarines, ships, combat zones, and in space. They might even have been upfront about it with Robert if Google’s employees hadn’t boycotted defense projects for the last decade. So they’d been subtle, and that all seemed very promising until the alpha testers quit and Osmark cut his losses.

  So whoever was monitoring Os-Tech had to be debriefed for several hours. DARPA would run their own version of the project, and it would cost more—a lot more—but they also had access to more resilient test subjects.

  Sandra didn’t know anything about that. She was pretty, career driven, and liked to stay in shape. She was Robert Osmark’s assistant. And the building down the road was just a photography store.

  “I LOVE YOU TOO, BABY. I’ll see you tonight.”

  Jeff headed back inside. It was time to see what Alan had been up to.

  TWELVE

  “SO WHAT’S THIS ALL about?” I asked, leading Horace back toward the market where I’d met him.

  “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

  “Whatever it is we’re doing.”

  Horace frowned. “You don’t know?”

  I sighed at him.

  He gave my arm a squeeze. “Fine. You’re onto me. This has all been about improving your sense of humor.”

  “I think you might be a bad teacher. I haven’t even reached level 1 yet.”

  He grinned. “See? You’re learning already.”

  I grinned back, for my own benefit since he couldn’t see me. “But seriously, I’m on a quest to earn a character class, and I don’t even know what that class is.”

  Horace took a moment to consider, then answered. “Suggestion is a spell from the school of Illusion.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Like a magician?” I pictured myself guessing people’s birthdays and pulling doves from my inventory.

  “No. Magicians perform Illusions through sleight of hand and clever devices. You haven’t got the brains.”

  “You’re such a dick,” I said, laughing. “So what does an Illusionist do?”

  “An Illusionist shapes reality,” he said, his voice solemn.

  “Wow.”

  “By performing Illusions,” he continued. “Do you like birds? Coin tricks? Colored scarves?”

  I scowled. “Are you serious?”

  “About the birds? No, though minor miracles aren’t a bad way to earn a living. What I mean is that Illusion is all about the setup. It’s mundane. The second a mark realizes they’re being played, even a skilled Illusionist can fail.”

  “Okay. So where do we start?”

  “We? Who said I was going to teach you?”

  “Well, you remember when I said I only did okay selling the knife?”

  “I do. I was disappointed, but not shocked.”

  I jangled the change in my pocket. It was a long shot, but I figured if he could smell what race the blood on my shirt came from, he knew what gold sounded like, too.

  Horace cocked his head for a moment, then said, “We’ll start with breathing control.”

  THE GRIFFIN THAT DECORATED Imperial banners was a legacy of the Old Empire, far to the east, over the Great Sea, and lost to time and storms.

  They weren’t native to Eldgard. The knights of the expeditionary force that landed at the estuary of the Essaryl River, in the Shining Plains, brought the Griffins over as eggs or juveniles. In a ceremony known as the “Floating of the Banners,” they released the griffins by the dozen before attending to the conquest of the Hvitalfar, whom they imagined to be helpless savages. Later, the Justiciars of Sophia celebrated the festival as a cautionary tale.

  The knights prized fully grown Griffins as mounts, but even a tame adult was too temperamental a creature to make the sea voyage. Knowing Griffins remain docile to humans for two to three generations, the knights planned on retrieving their fully grown mounts once the conquest was complete.

  Two human generations later, the surviving Imperials, backed by their Risi and Hvitalfar allies, fought the people of Eldgard to a standstill and negotiated the contentious Treaty of Alaunhylles. The knighthood had been decimated, forcing the senator class that rose from the merchant families to conscript and train regular colonists for war. These soldiers, often armed and armored at their own expense, were the foundation of the Imperial Legion. The peace they earned would be short-lived, but that is another story.

  The Griffins, on the other hand, thrived. Some were slain by elven rangers. Yet others were killed by Drakes, their natural enemies. Those that escaped nested high among the rocks and fed on snakes, hares, mountain goats, and eventually elk and ibex. They invaded the ecosystem with speed checked only by their habit of fighting for territory and eating each other’s young. They were regal, vicious creatures, and when the third generation of Imperials ascended the mountains in search of their birthright, the Griffins of Eldgard proved most of them unworthy with talon, beak, and claw.

  Gaius Considia had well earned his honorific. Before Provus made it back to his post, the general had penned three letters, which he dispatched by courier pigeon.

  The first letter was a courtesy note to the head of the Senate, informing him that a tribune of the Legion and member of House Considia had been the target of a botched assassination, and that, as the most senior general of the forces protecting New Viridia and its surroundings, Gaius was taking appropriate measures. He included no other detail because, beyond the nomination of a consul or praetor, which it had not done in decades, or the slow process of legislative review, the Senate had no say in military matters.

  The second letter mobilized squads of ten legionaries in every guard post and fort in the city, split them into teams of five and positioned them along the major avenues and plazas in every quarter. Light-armored Accipiter scouts in flights of two flew lazy circles in the sky. The city watch was mobilized by their captains and, sometimes, their unofficial patrons, to help or hinder. Politicians, lawyers, and doctors across the city feared a coup, and several barricaded themselves in their homes or attempted to flee through the city gates with a few heirlooms and valuables. Those who made it to the gates were stopped but left unharmed as long as they followed the soldiers’ instructions.

  The Legion waited. The city held its breath.

  The third letter had summoned the Legion’s senior Enchanter. While Senator Constantine Flavus was drafting a formal letter of protest, and while legionaries hurriedly donned their armor and boiled out of their posts like ants, Senior Enchanter Hadrian, of family Nonia and gens Considia, carefully scraped flakes of blood from the sword and scabbard into a flask of reagents and water. He stirred it with a metal wand, then set it on Gaius’s desk. Next, he laid out three identical spearheads with channels carved into the metal in the shape of runes. They had short, looped handles, each wrapped in different colored ribbons. Hadrian poured the mixture until the blood channels were full.

  Then they waited, neither needing words nor sparing them, old friends that they were. Gaius returned to the endless series of reports, orders, and requisitions that required his input or seal. Hadrian paced the room, examining Gaius’s trophies, sometimes bringing up stories about the weapons, armor, and other artifacts. The memories made Gaius smile even though his quill never stopped moving.

  Finally, Hadrian received the confirmation from the legates. He looked up and said, “They’re in position.”

  Gaius paused but didn’t set his quill down. “Do it.”

  Hadrian focused on each of the spearheads in turn, casting one spell to make them fly and another to make them seek.

  The blue-ribboned spearhe
ad hovered over the desk, trembling like an excited hound, then accelerated east toward a washing well where the Sophitians had abandoned the bucket and brushes. The spear tracked back and forth, then found trace amounts of blood in the water and shot to the east, following the sewer system. Hadrian lost his connection around the time it crossed the outer wall.

  The red-ribboned spearhead launched from the desk like an arrow and veered toward the courtyard where Provus had been ambushed. It descended and circled, angling this way and that, like an eagle hunting a hare, then picked up on Acolyte Prudence’s trail. It left the courtyard and turned right, opposite the way Alan had run, and weaved down side streets and alleys until it reached a Sophitian shelter for the indigent.

  The spearhead flipped, point down, and rapped twice on the door with its handle.

  When the prior in charge of the shelter opened the door, perhaps expecting a new resident, the spearhead darted past him, flew through two rooms, and found Prudence in a small chapel, kneeling and at prayer with Weiz’s bandana still hidden in her robes. The spearhead buried itself into her back, between the left shoulder blade and spine, pinning her to the pew she’d been leaning against.

  Three flights of scouts landed on the flat rooftop. They broke in through a trapdoor. They kicked over furniture, shouted, and attacked indiscriminately, driving the panicked residents of the shelter into the streets, where two squads of praetorian triarii in heavy armor systematically put them to the sword. Among the dozens of victims were two Sicarii who had been hiding among the homeless.

  Watching from a balcony on the opposite side of the street, an old woman with a cowl drawn over her head hummed an Imperial paean that hadn’t been sung in a hundred years.

  “You might have taken a few for questioning,” Hadrian said.

  “They didn’t know anything,” Gaius replied.

  The third and final spearhead arced high above the city before plummeting toward a small marketplace near the Broad Way where an old blind man and his new apprentice were doing breathing exercises. Then it angled left, through an archway, homing in on a stronger scent. It jinked right, spun, and flew an S-turn out of the alleys and across the avenue. It sunk itself four inches deep into Erik the Wode’s door.

  Lance Corporal Gork of the city watch—whose captain was only of the mildly corrupt variety in that she would turn a blind eye to the occasional in-kind donation but would flog a watchman for bribery or extortion—was working with a half-squad of soldiers when the spearhead planted itself. He broke down the Wode’s door and found Erik passed out on cheap wine laced with Affka. The still-bloody washbasin was by the Wode’s bed.

  “One prisoner,” said Hadrian. “It might be the commoner who saved Provus.”

  “Have him brought to the nearest precinct and sound the recall.”

  “I will. You could message them yourself, you know,” Hadrian grumbled.

  “I prefer paper,” Gaius answered. “It doesn’t talk back.”

  The general’s orders filtered down from Hadrian to the two legates, then to the tribunes and prefects, the centurions, and, finally, the decanii leading each squad and their team leaders.

  The soldiers of the Legion, many of them scared and confused, followed their orders and their training. They moved efficiently, held their assigned positions, and responded with unhesitating brutality if challenged, but otherwise did no harm. Then, when the order came, they sheathed their weapons and returned to their barracks, as neat and sharp as on a parade drill. The non-comms sat down with shaken rookies, sharing unlikely stories that might have happened to them or someone they knew, and yet that somehow made things better. The officers went home and talked to mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts, and sometimes their spouses.

  Gaius dismissed the senior Enchanter and returned to his work. By the time Senator Flavus’s letter of protest arrived with the next set of dispatches, the Griffin of Viridia had savaged the Sophitians.

  In the One Temple, in the outer ring of the city, Sathis picked up the scales his goddess had dropped and reverently carried them into the sacristy. He’d failed his goddess and his dreams lay in pieces, but he was still faithful. Robbed of all he had, he still hoped. He turned to prayer.

  And in Morsheim, in the Realm of Death, Thanatos rocked his sister as she wept.

  SO, YEAH. IT WAS A slow afternoon. Horace kept me working on my breathing, then taught me some sleight of hand. It felt like drudge work, but like many things in V.G.O., mundane actions led to general skills.

  <<<>>>

  Ability: Intonation

  By focusing on your breathing, pitch, and tone, your voice-based spells are just a bit more effective.

  Ability Type/Level: Passive/Level 1

  Cost: None

  Effect: The effectiveness of voice spells, chants, and bard songs increases by 1%.

  <<<>>>

  Ability: Breath Control

  You have improved your lung capacity, largely by ignoring people who told you not to hold your breath.

  Ability Type/Level: Passive/Level 1

  Cost: None

  Effect: 5% more time before drowning or asphyxiating.

  <<<>>>

  Ability: Nimble Fingers

  Diligent work has left you with improved fine motor control. It helps with the little things.

  Ability Type/Level: Passive/Level 2

  Cost: None

  Effect: Skills that require small, precise motions, such as lockpicking, gesture-based magic, and cheating at cards are 6% more likely to succeed.

  <<<>>>

  I didn’t think I’d be power-leveling those anytime soon, but it was gratifying to know the game took note of my efforts.

  I also leveled Keen-Sight, bringing my chance of slowing time when I was in trouble to 2%. Between that and the coin tricks Horace showed me, I started to notice things I hadn’t before.

  I found out, for example, that Horace only put half the coppers he was given into his “secret” money belt. The other half, along with any silver, he palmed and slid into a small slit in his left pants leg, which I guessed led to a kind of drop sleeve. He’d wait for several minutes sometimes with that coin hidden in his hand, then scratch his leg mid-conversation and make a deposit.

  I spotted two pickpockets working the crowd at different occasions. The first was a younger woman in a belted tan tunic and brown corduroy capris. She had short, mousy brown hair and a purple birthmark on the right side of her neck.

  “Watch that one,” Horace said. “You’ll learn a thing or two.”

  She was nothing special in a remarkable way. She hunched, or she stood tall. She stomped her feet or moved lightly, like a dancer. She stopped to talk to people she knew or bumped against people she didn’t, and once in a while, a coin would become hers. She must have stolen five coppers from one end of the market to the other. She stole a silver from a well-dressed man who had been arguing furiously with one of the vendors, but she placed a hand on his shoulder and returned it, saying he’d dropped it. Then she noticed me watching her and froze for a heartbeat before calmly leaving the plaza at the same pace as the crowd.

  “Five coppers in less than ten minutes,” I told Horace. “That’s better than you, when you’re not conning young janissaries out of their pay.”

  “I counted fifteen. Five coppers, and one silver.”

  “She returned the silver.”

  “She stole it twice,” Horace said with a grin.

  The second pickpocket was a middle-aged bald man who didn’t try to be subtle. He bumped into people hard enough to knock them over and stared them down if they complained. He swiped at least two items from the street merchants while they were dealing with customers. Horace’s frown deepened with each theft. Then a group of five soldiers equipped with full segmented Roman armor and tower shields entered the plaza from the avenue a block away.

  Horace muttered something under his breath.

  Like the widow had, the thief turned as if Horace had spoken in his ear. He star
ted running, not away from the legionaries but straight at them.

  “Did you just—”

  “Hush, boy. Learn.”

  The legionaries saw the man coming toward them and raised their shields. Horace muttered more words under his breath. The legionaries spoke to each other, spreading until there was enough space for them to maneuver. One man unequipped his shield and stood behind the other four. The crowd started to back away.

  As the thief was about to reach the legionaries, the burly soldier in the middle, the one with a crest like a Mohawk on his helmet, kicked the bottom of his shield up so it faced the sky and punched the bottom edge into the thief’s face. The thief’s head went backward, but his legs kept going. The crested legionary followed through, straddling the thief and landing two more blows to his body before the soldier who’d stowed his shield moved forward, flipped the thief, and tied his arms behind his back. All the while, the other three legionaries shielded the capture team from the crowd. They kicked and dragged the bound thief to a nearby wall and formed a barrier of shields around him. It was coordinated, smooth, and over in ten seconds, like a brutal form of dance.

  “Harsh,” I said.

  Horace shrugged. “That kind’s bad for business. I made sure they didn’t kill him on the spot. If he survives sentencing and prison, he’ll come back a better thief.”

  But that was the height of the excitement for the afternoon. I saw a pair of Accipiters fly overhead at one point. Eventually, the team of legionaries left with their prize and the tension in the marketplace died down. Horace taught me how to roll a copper across my knuckles, and after an hour or so I could do it slowly, right-handed and in one direction, without dropping it. I leveled up Nimble Fingers for a 7% bonus in the process. The hardest part was stopping it from falling between my ring finger and pinkie on the last flip.